Second Prince
by CatMuto
Summary: Half Prince: Sick and tired of everything expected of Prince, Lan wants to take a break but loves playing 2nd Life too much to really quit. She wants to play, but doesn't want to be burdened by Prince anymore. Then she gets permission to make a second character...
1. Chapter 1

**Originally planned as a One Shot.**

**But I ended up having several ideas for this thing, so I turned it into a whole story.**

**Also readable on deviantART under my nickname of Cat-Alin.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

"Prince, the city's financial situation", "When we consider the expansions to the city's western block", "In Star City, the population is almost crying for love songs-", "-with house prices rising, we're bound to lose players to other cities-", "and the jacket trimmed with fake fur, maybe dyed red", "the reconstructions, Prince-", "Rowdyness of drunk players in the pub district", "and without further cutbacks-", "we're looking at losing the entire ci-"  
"Everybody shut up!" Prince yelled as he jumped out of his seat and the entire room became instantly silent, staring at their leader. The elf let his bloodred eyes wander along the stunned faces of everybody sitting at the long wooden table, all with their own papers in hand or flared out, bombarding him with information from every side about so many things he didn't know where to listen. Needing to create order, he tried to do so.  
"Yu Lian."  
"Infinite City's financials are getting close to nothing." the darkhaired mage said. "Unless we do some drastic cutbacks, we are facing the abandonement of it all, because the value of the city and the surrounding land will be worth less than dirt. We have to salvage this, and soon, Prince."  
"Gui."  
"Your Highness, the planned expansions must be started and finished soon." the bard explained seriously. "With more and more players deciding to live in our city, we need to expand the western block for more housing opportunities. The inns are already bursting with players on permanent stay until they can move in."  
"Loli."  
"We have already planned out the next concert tour." the elven thief gestured with her hands. "Infinite Rhapsody is already prepared for the final stage, temporary stages have been built in the other cities and we've been advertising the tour to the players...we can lower the cost by reusing old costumes."  
"There's still the cost for board and food..." Prince sunk back into his chair with a sigh and massaged the bridge of his nose. "What about the city's security, Dagé?"  
"We've been getting more reports of rowdyness from players amongst the pub district." Ugly Wolf repeated. "And the disturbances are getting more and more, moving closer to the living quarters. Granted, we can't stop people from drinking but we need stricter security. And without NPCs, we'll need players to do that job."  
The elf nodded and kneaded his forehead, trying to take it all in and come up with a solution. Wolf was right, there was no point in not letting players into the bars, after all their drinking was also payment for the city. The problem with the finances and the expansions was a vicious circle without money, no expansions. And without any expansions to let players finally buy some houses, there'd be no money. And Lolidragon was willing to not make new clothes for the concerts, something she and Ice Phoenix loved to do. They insisted that, without new clothes, the effect wouldn't be as grand. But considering the cost for housing the band, the tours usually taking up to a month, the food they'd need during that time... at least the travelling cost was low thanks to Sunshine's flying carpet.  
"Uuurgh!" Prince let out a frustrated groan and gripped his hair with both hands.  
"A break is in order." Yu Lian said and got up from her own chair, shuffling her papers together. "We'll try this again in an hour." Everybody followed her order, getting up from the table and leaving the meeting hall, stretching or talking to each other, relieved to be out for a while. Only Prince remained in his seat and as everybody filed out, he leaned his head in one hand and tapped a finger onto the table.  
The finances, expansions, more security for the city and concert tours, not to mention his plans on renovating the Star, Moon and Sun city into attractions... Maybe there was a solution to the problem there. After all, from the beginning it was his plan to turn Star City into a place filled to the brim with entertainment. It would be the perfect place to build stuff, or even turn the entire city into a theme park! The perfect money-maker! It was wonderful! It was perfect!  
"No, wait... no finances..." the elf mumbled to himself and burst his own bubble of Imagination Land.  
Okay, giving up the plans of letting the renovated cities become the new moneybags, Prince had to come up with something else. Well, they couldn't pay players to work as security guards. They'd have to do that themselves... although that wasn't helping the other matters. Sinking lower in the chair, Prince grumbled out of frustration and banged his head against the back of the chair when he sat up with a jolt. Holding his throbbing head, the elf went over one idea after another and always found some shortcoming.  
When an hour passed, the head of the city's deparments entered the meeting hall again and found Prince standing next to his chair, his expression emotionless. They sat down and studied the citylord who remained standing, waiting for him to say or do something and tell them their next course of action. Prince held his hands up although the room was already quiet and turned his head towards Yu Lian.  
"How much money did we make from the last concert?" he asked and waited while Yu Lian flipped through her papers, finding the concert incomes.  
"Close to 7.000 Crystal Coins, rounded up." she answered and frowned, wondering why he wanted to know the latest income. It was gone now, most of it.  
"Alright, in that case..." Prince mumbled in a low voice to himself. "The next tour isn't that big, so it might bring less... Gui, rough estimate. The expansions."  
"About 2.000 Crystal Coins, considering the amount of material and size of what we'll build. Several hundred Gold Coins for the new city walls." he replied instantly.  
"Hm..." Prince nodded and frowned, thinking things through in his head, trying to see if his plan was going to work out. He walked around his chair, frowning, finally stopping on the other side of it and turning towards everybody again.  
"Maybe it's crazy,but..." he told them. "Yu Lian, do as many cutbacks as need to be done. For the tour, we'll camp out and eat simple food, maybe even not eat if the budget is too close. The concert income will only be for the city. Gui, if the majority goes to the expansions, how much is left for finances?"  
"Say we get about 4.500 Crystal Coins together," Gui explained, his head buzzing with calculations. "if we use 90% of the earnings on expansions, the finances are going to just barely scrape by and the expansions will be finished within a month. If we give 16% to the financial department, though, it won't get done before two months or longer. But the financial threat won't be as big."  
Prince nodded and looked over at Yu Lian, who returned his gaze.  
"With cutbacks on every corner and the small income from the tour, maybe." she agreed. "But it would be better to not hurry the expansions, lest we want to run the risk of causing more harm than help. Take a minimum of three months for the expansions. We'll figure it out."  
The citylord sighed relieved when he heard that, but got called back to more problems by Lolidragon rapping her knuckles against the table.  
"Not to burst your bubble, Prince, but what about the security problems?" she asked lazily. "We don't have any players who would do it for free. With the band gone, we'd also be missing on help from our own side in that manner. How do you plan to solve that problem?"  
"Call me an idealist, but I think that, with most people enjoying the concerts a lot, they'll be too happy to get rowdy after drinking." Prince admitted sheepishly. Lolidragon rolled her eyes at that and shrugged her shoulders, knowing that Prince meant it.  
With Yu Lian and Gui discussing the finer details of the new plans, the meeting was over and Prince took the chance and left, heading onto the adjacent balcony. Barely paying attention to the view over Infinite City and the landscape beyond the city walls, the elf let out a huge sigh and relaxed his body, leaning heavily against the banister and putting his head onto his crossed arms.  
"Good job with the thinking, Prince." Lolidragon said, having followed the citylord out and stood next to him, nudging his side. "Hurts the head, though, right?"  
"I didn't do the thinking." the elf told her and nodded his head towards the room behind them. "Gui did the money stuff. And Yu Lian put her foot down about it."  
"Yeah, but you got the idea of where to get money to solve three out of four problems."  
Smiling wistfully, Prince straightened up and let his eyes wander around the view in front of him. The sandy colored walls of the city, the buildings in it, with players wandering around all over the place and their general chatter filling the air so much that little bits of it was heard up on the balcony.  
"Heh, you know, Loli," Prince said. "when I was still playing The World, I talked with my brother about owning a city. I always wanted to have my own land, no matter what size it was. And I would've been happy with just that one land. I didn't know what that ownership would mean. I always thought it was easy, just lean back and collect taxes from anyone who lives there and I'm done. Now I see the trouble with it. And that I have to invade other cities, too..."  
Lolidragon turned around and jumped up to sit on the banister, listening to the elf.  
"So, you would've been happier with just Infinite City and not becoming Overlord of the entire Central Continent?"  
"Frankly, yes." Prince answered without hesitating and then laughed self-consciousessly. "What a thing for the lord to say, right?"  
"Well..."  
"Actually, I'm sick of it all..." the elf admitted with a heavy sigh and turned to look into the room again. Inside, the department heads were still talking with Wolf musing at one end of the table, trying to come up with a security solution himself. The door burst open, Doll running in and either chasing Meatbun or playing a game of tag with it. It was hard to tell which one it really was. Watching them for a while, Prince shrugged his shoulders in an exasperated manner and waved at Lolidragon, his sign that he was logging off.  
He saw a short wave from her before everything went black.

* * *

"Yang! Oi, Yang!" Lan called out, rapping her knuckles against the bedroom door of her brother. Hearing nothing, she knocked again and finally heard it, his sleepy mumbling and the scuffling of him getting out of bed. Sighing annoyed, she grabbed her books and put her shoes on. Holding two lunchboxes in one hand, Lan stood in the entrance hall for about five minutes until Yang was semi-decent and awake enough to leave the house. Handing him his lunch, the girl locked the door when both exited their home and they rushed down the hallway and stairs to the bus stop. All the while, Lan hissed at Yang.  
"Do it yourself! I take care of everything in Second Life and I take care of you in real life. I'm sick of this! Get up on your own!"  
"Why are you so pissy? Period or what?" Yang asked, surprised at his sister's string of nagging which was generally at a minimum. That comment earned him a glare from his sister.  
When Lan entered the classroom with her brother and they each approached their seats, Lan's two best friends took one look at her and got curious.  
"My god, what's with you?" Jing asked and held up her little compact mirror, showing the frown lines and bags under her eyes.  
"City managing is hard work..." Lan admitted and sank into her chair, putting her head onto the desk and told them about yesterday's meeting.  
"Hmm..." Yun nodded in a sympathetic matter. "And we thought you had pulled an all-nighter, not logging on at all. We didn't see you."  
"All-nighter? What fo..." the brunette began but stopped herself, suddenly remembering with a pang that assignment she still had to do for Professor Min, but also remembered that there were still a few days before the final deadline for it. "I hope it won't take all night long..."  
Min entered the classroom then, putting his papers onto the front desk and rapped his knuckles against the blackboard for a second to get everyone's attention.  
"Good morning." he greeted everyone with a slight smile. "Let's begin fast. Regarding the assignment I gave you-... yes?" He stopped talking when he saw a student lifting his hand, looking rather eagerly at him and probably having a question that required answering.  
"It's not really about class..." the student admitted but got an encouraging nod from Min. "I, uh, wanted to ask... if something is wrong with Prince."  
"As far as I have noticed, nothing is wrong with him." Min answered, cocking his head slightly to the side. "Why do you ask?"  
"Well, he is barely ever seen in Second Life anymore..."  
"Prince is online and seems fine. He's merely busy with managing the Central Continent and hardly has time to leave the castle." Thinking that that was enough information or even simple talk about Prince, Lan figured the student's question was answered and things would go on, but the student lifted his hand again. Perhaps he, too, hadn't done the assignment and was hoping to distract Min with enough Prince-related words and questions, so that Min would forget all about it himself and move onto something else.  
"But before he was this busy, he was looking really pale...!" the student said sheepishly and looked hopeful when Min frowned slightly.  
"Well, he always was a bit on the light side." Min muttered. "His Highness' complexion being of silky whiteness is of course always easy to misinterpret as illness..." And then he began to flare out on his favorite subject of his beloved Prince, dissecting the complexion of the elf, going on about the almost albino-esque appearance, even spending at least five minutes explaining the wonderful contrast the dark long eyeslashes made against the fair skin. The entire class listened, but nobody looked more horrified than Lan and she put her head on the desk again, clawing her hands into her hair. Aside from taking care of her brother all day, all night long she had to handle the problems of the Central Continent and particularly Infinite City. Not to mention caring for Meatbun and avoiding fangirls. She also had to spend her day enduring Min's long-winded, adjective-heavy, besotted and incredibly embarrassing rantings about Prince!  
"-Ah, the bell already?" Min said more to himself than the class and looked up at the clock, the last chimes of the bell ringing for the next class. Quickly apologizing for his rant, the professor mentioned the assignment being handled next lesson and filed out of the room.  
Meanwhile, Yun and Jing leaned over towards Lan's desk, because the girl hadn't lifted her head since she had put it down the last time around.  
"I... am going... to kill him..." she growled, feeling her face burn bright red with embarrassment, anger and a slight hint of flattery.  
"He'd probably enjoy it, coming from Prince, after all..." Jing offered as advice and she and Yun grabbed Lan by each arm, hiding her a bit and dragged her out, heading towards a drinking fountain in the hall where she splashed some cool water on her face. Once she felt her face not being so red and hot anymore, Lan sighed and wiped her hand across her forehead, suppressing a yawn.  
"Gui in Second Life, Gui in class, Yang during the day and being a braggy bastard in Second Life..." she muttered darkly to herself. "And the finances..."  
"Lan?" Yun asked tentatively. "You okay?"  
"I'm fine. Just the stupid problems with the money. The upcoming tour... oh and the drunkards. Forgot about them..." Seeming to be caught in her own web of thoughts, Jing and Yun just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, deciding to not ask anymore.  
They were sure she wasn't going to answer them in any way they'd understand, so they gave her a little jab in the back to make her return to the classroom.

* * *

Staring frustrated at the half finished assignment regarding literature history in front of her, Lan chewed slightly on the end of the pencil in her mouth, an old habit of hers that she had tried to rid herself of several times already. Having failed repeatedly, she decided to not care anymore.  
"Buuuhh..." she went and sank so low into her chair she almost slipped off. No matter how she looked at the paper, she had no idea how to finish the assignment, or even what she still had to do with it. Her head was stuffed with the problems of Infinite City, whirring around inside of it like a merry-go-round, making it impossible for her to think of anything else. With her mind as blank as it was about anything else, Lan decided to just leave it the way it was for now. There was still time to do it. And hopefully, Min would explain more about the assignment tomorrow... unless another classmate decided to Prince-track the guy.  
"That guy needs a whack on the head whenever 'Prince' is mentioned..." she said to herself and stretched, changing into her pajamas. Heading to bed, Lan lay down and automatically grabbed the headband, staring at it for a minute. Putting it on would bring her back into Second Life, make her deal with the problems of yesterday again and more, because she was sure that in her current absence, something must've happened to cause trouble. Sighing slightly, she twirled the headband in her hand and thought fondly back of the days when sleep was rejuvinating and not more tiring.  
"...Screw it." Lan finally said, threw the headband carelessly into a corner of her bed and snuggled under the blanket, deciding to sleep the natural way, without the headband inducing the automatic drowsyness which helped players to log into Second Life more easily.  
Despite the initial trouble of falling asleep, when Lan woke up in the morning and stretched, she actually felt pretty good. Better than yesterday, that much was clear. She had slept alright, had not spent the night online and trying to solve problems she never fully understood, neither having to deal with an almost obsessive lover, although she still had to deal with him during the day. Luckily he didn't know her offline. She'd never have a quiet moment if he did.  
Later, as she was almost heading out the door and leaving Yang who was still in the realm of Second Life or sleep behind, she heard her phone ring and took the call.  
"Xiao Lan?" Zhuo's voice came and he had a slight undertone of worry in it. "Are you alright?"  
"I'm great. Why?" she asked and put her keys into her pocket, although she had an idea why he was asking, not to mention calling this early in the morning.  
"Well, you weren't online."  
"So I didn't play Second Life. Big deal. Do I need a reason?" she told him, trying to keep her voice calm. "Besides, the guys know what to do."  
"Sure. If you don't want to play, that's absolutely your business. It's just that everyone's wondering and worrying." Zhuo explained. "Especially Gui..."  
Lan couldn't help but notice the grumble in his voice when he mentioned that guy's name. Shrugging her shoulders, she grinned, thinking about the bard. Knowing him, he was probably walking around frantically and restless and blabbing about where Prince was and why he wasn't online. Probably ignoring his work, too...  
"Zhuo-gege, tell him to pull himself together and do his job." the girl said, descending the stairs to the bus stop. "Unless I do that myself, I'm not sure I will..."  
"Got it." Zhuo said and hung up.  
Sighing, Lan got on the bus when it arrived and felt like hitting herself. Of course Gui was going to act differently if Prince wasn't there. She hadn't been there, but when Prince had got lost on the East Continent and was gone from the party for almost three months... well, she had been told that Gui had been annoying, more so than usual. Insufferable, whining about wanting to head over and 'rescue' Prince. From what, she didn't know. All she knew about the solution, was that Lolidragon used something that she called 'The Heel'. It must've worked... maybe Lan should tell Lolidragon to use it again.  
If she decided to not go online again. She wasn't sure if she was going to.  
"XX University Main Entrance." the busdriver's voice came over the announcer and Lan got out with other students, trudging towards the entrance.  
"The elusive player, hey! You weren't online yesterday." Yun said as a greeting, grinning widely at her as she sat down.  
"Yes, for once I didn't have to bother with annoying stuff..." Lan admitted with a sigh.  
The class was its usual loud self, waiting for Professor Min to arrive and naturally quieted down when the bell was only a few minutes away, knowing that Min arrived at this time. But he didn't today. He entered just as the bell was ringing and put his papers on the desk, smiling at the class.  
"Morning." he said and took the first paper off the pile on the desk, turned towards the blackboard and began the lesson. Throughout the lesson, when it came to answering a question or going from one topic to the next, Min was always silent a second or two and then continued, perhaps mentally preparing himself. But he never did that before. The class knew him for switching through topics in one lesson faster than other teachers, but still able to have the students keep up with him and ending the class with the newest assignment. Min was an outrageously intelligent and focused teacher.  
Unless he went on a tangent about Prince.  
Lan watched him during class instead of really paying attention and she knew other students also had a little trouble adjusting to Min's new behavior, like he was losing his train of thought at a random pace or stopped and got distracted by something nobody else but him saw. Luckily, those instances were short, at least short enough to not cause any trouble in class. When the bell rang at the end of class, Min was amongst the first to leave.  
"Maybe I do need to go online and smack sense into him..." Lan thought to herself. Although she had been thinking of laying off Second Life for another day. But by the time she got home that day, she had dismissed the thought. After all, she had told Zhuo to take care of Gui so that problem was taken care of. Yu Lian, having all the details for the money, would be busy doing cutbacks, not letting anybody disturb her and everybody knew to leave her alone when she was working. And with reusing the costumes from the last concert, there was no need for Prince to be online for another set of measurement taking and color deciding. Not that Prince did the latter... that was all Ice Phoenix. And Lan enjoyed herself, not having to go online every night and deal with anything. All the sleep, or energy, she thought she lost while dealing with problems, demands on the citylord and running away from fangirls she got back over the next few nights of good oldtime sleep.  
By the fourth day, though, she was having problems.  
Aside from the fact that Min's absent-minded behavior got worse and he sometimes didn't come into class until 15 minutes into the lesson, often lost his place or failed to teach at all and just stood at the blackboard with his back towards the class and was silent. He also seemed more tired. Either it was because he was busy worrying about Prince in Second Life or because he didn't sleep at all at night because of worry and refusing to log on, knowing that Prince wasn't going to be online anyway. Lan sort of hoped it was the first, because if she returned as Prince and he wasn't there, she had no means of telling him. And she did want to return to Second Life.  
Because she started to miss Second Life. She missed being with the rest of the OddSquad, missed killing the monsters when she was in a bad mood, travelling around on Sunshine's carpet and even Wu Qing, annoying bastard as he was in game and real life. But whenever she thought of that, she remembered it, the problems of the city all resting on her shoulders and everybody wanting to see Prince and wanting this, that or the other thing. And that took the fun away.  
But, finally, she decided to go online again. Just to beat Gui up for letting himself go so much that it affected his real life personality. That night, Lan sighed and adjusted the headband one last time, lying down and waiting to log on.

* * *

Mistake!  
Prince barely took two steps down the hallway when he heard running steps behind him and the next second he was tackled from behind, two arms wrapping themselves around his chest and he almost got the air squeezed out of his lungs. Gui was definitely relieved and happy that Prince was online.  
"Your Highness! You're online! I'm so happy to see you again!" he cheered and cheered, so eager that he sometimes lifted the elf off his feet. But before Prince could start up with an apology or even his initial want of beating Gui up, two more pairs of footsteps approached him.  
"Prince! There you are!" a high voice said in quite a different tone, like it was furious with him and wanted to rip his hair out. Ice Phoenix marched down the hall, closely followed by Fairsky, and she stopped just barely in front of him and stuck her face in front of his with a fire burning in her eyes. Gripping the bottom of his shirt, because Gui still hadn't let go and made the collar unavailable for grabbing, Ice Phoenix began to shake him lightly.  
"What's this I heard of reusing the old costumes? Are you insane? You have any idea how much money that could set us back?" she asked. "We need new costumes, part of the reason those people come to the concerts is to see you in all sorts of outfits! So what if we save money by not making new ones? We'll lose out on it!"  
"But Ice Ph..." Prince began and then started when Fairsky's face appeared close to his the next second.  
"And you're thinking of abusing my beloved hubby as your chauffeur again, aren't you?" she demanded to know and stomped her foot. "Don't you dare tear us apart, the way you almost did during the last concert. I'm setting a time limit of being apart from Sunshine, got that? And if I spend even one second over that limit, I'm going to go meet him. I don't care if it's in the middle of the concert, I'll drop it all and walk right off stage!"  
All attempts the elf made to explain or to be heard by the two girls was futile, especially since Gui's excessive talking about his return was still droning in his ears. Not to mention that, with the two girls' voices getting louder, his already sensitive elf ears were twitching like mad when it became too much to handle.  
"Look, the costumes", "A minimum of 4.000 Crystal Coins, that's what you expected, isn't it", "poor guy has to spend all day on that carpet while you parade around-", "-half of that could be lost without anything new to present to the audience.", "was so lonely and boring without you around, Your Highness-"  
His ears twitching, his head throbbing like crazy and with Gui's arms still around him, Prince felt absolutely trapped in place. Wondering again why he had returned, the elf couldn't remember the reason and only felt a sudden desire to hit himself for going online again. He should've stayed away longer, until everything blew over.  
"Back off!" he yelled loudly and his voice echoed through the hallway and the three nuisances jumped about a foot away from him, like his voice had created a barrier, forcing them to give him some space. They all stared, dead silent and frozen in place, at the elf whose chest was heaving with anger and his eyes glared at them, worst they had ever done. Then Prince brushed past the two girls and down the hallway, banging the door open and seeing more shocked faces. Apparently his voice had been so loud that the next room had heard it as well. Seeing who he wanted, the elf rushed towards her and grabbed Lolidragon's wrist, pulling her out of the chair she was sitting in and dragging her along.  
"Whoa! Hey!" she snapped and half-forcefully followed him, almost stumbling over her legs when he returned to the hallway he had just vacated, opened the first door he could get his hand on and almost pushed her inside, slamming the door shut behind himself. "What the hell is wrong with you?"  
"I am sick and tired of all of this!" Prince yelled at her, not realizing that his voice was heard outside of the room. "All the time, it's just Prince This, Prince That, Prince What-The-Hell-Ever! Financial problems, security problems, public problems, all of it I have to take care of! And nobody's of much help! Sure, you do as ordered, but it's still all my problem! Dammit, I can't even go anywhere without a whole fucking brigade following me!"  
"You know," Lolidragon replied, raising her own voice so he would hear her over his own yelling. "we do leave you alone if you want to go anywhere."  
"Even so, I still have to uphold the image of Prince! I can't do anything that harms the image of Infinite City!" he screamed, feeling all the pent-up frustration, finally letting it out. "I can't relax anywhere anymore! I can't be myself, Loli! Always Prince, Prince, Prince! Fuck Prince! I wish I never had entered Second Life!"  
The elf finally stopped and stood there with a heaving chest and clenched fists, staring at the thief. Lolidragon returned his look deviantly, folding her arms together. Both were silent for a minute, letting their tempers cool down a little bit.  
"So what do you come to me for?" Lolidragon asked. "What am I supposed to do about this?"  
"I don't know! You think of something for a change." Prince replied with a heavy sigh and a voice a bit more quiet than before. He didn't know what he want. All he knew, was that it had become too much over time and he finally felt some relief about letting it all out. It was partly her fault, after all, having been the first to label him as the citylord, turning him into Second Life's Spokesperson without asking him beforehand. And during character creation, she had been the one to decide his appearance and increasing the option of beautification to fourty percent and making everybody end up in love with Prince.  
"If I could, I'd redo the whole process..." the elf admitted. "Can't I make a new character?"  
"No. I told you the rules upon your first log-in, One Character Per Person."  
"Can't you do an exception? Please. I love Second Life. It's an amazing game and I miss playing it, but..." Prince tried to explain. He was starting to feel exhausted, he wouldn't even mind begging Lolidragon on bended knees for anything. "Face it. When was the last time we went around and fought monsters, just for fun? Or didn't have to worry about anything. When we just ate at one of the restaurants and hung out together. That's what I miss. Not... this. This isn't what I love."  
Lolidragon listened and felt a sort of nostalgia overcome her when she remembered the time Prince was talking about. Before they had conquered this continent, before they had built Infinite City and before everything. The last time had been during the Adventurers' Tournament.  
"Okay." she said and heaved a sigh. "I'll talk to my supervisors, see if anything can be done."  
"Thank you, Loli." Prince let his shoulders slump with relief.  
"I don't know how they'll react, though... they might refuse..."  
"Tell them I'm not above blackmailing them. I can easily delete my character, causing you to lose The One And Only Prince as your spokesperson." Lolidragon laughed at that and gave Prince an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Sometimes, she felt like a mother superior to every player of Second Life.  
"Don't worry. If everything else fails, I'll tell them." she said. "But it might take a while, so try to stick this out for a few more days at least."  
"I will." Prince nodded and left the room with Lolidragon, facing the shocked and involuntary audience who quickly pretended to not have heard anything.

* * *

Over the next few days, Prince was sitting on hot coals while he waited for Lolidragon's news and although he tried to do his work as usual, they wouldn't let him. They talked in slow, calm voices to him and left him alone as much as possible, even telling him to not do anything when he offered it. When the security reports, in their usual short-sentenced manner, told of more rowdyness going on lately and even starting to harrass bypassers and Prince said they needed to do patrols, even volunteering to take on the first round, he was declined.  
"You should just lean back for a while and relax, Prince." Wolf told him in his usual deep and comforting voice. "We'll handle everything."  
"Why not head to the café and splurge, treat yourself a little bit?" Yu Lian offered, although amongst the cutbacks she had nixed splurging. Especially treats.  
Clearly, everybody was still very shaken up by the elf's last outburst and were trying to soothe his upset nature. They meant well and wanted to not overwork him, but all that did was make him angry again. Sighing, Prince leaned back into his chair.  
"You guys, I'm fine." he told them. "I can work, I can handle this. I just needed to let off some steam."  
"Be that as it may, we really have everything under control. The soonest we can expect to need you is for singing on stage." the mage said, studying the document. Just then, the door behind them burst open and Gui entered, having just logged on for the night. Seeing the elf in his chair, the bard began to rush across the room.  
Prince saw the bard approaching him fast and stood up, ready for the usual and stared when Gui stopped in his tracks, about two steps away from him, his arms outstretched in his usual glomping matter. Confused, Prince frowned and then looked at Gui whose expression seemed rather conflicted. Prince, standing in his I'm-Prepared-For-A-Hug position, lifted his shoulders and eyebrows, waiting for something to happen or the bard to explain himself.  
"Your Highness, may I embrace you?"  
Prince's jaw dropped so fast he thought it would fall right to the ground after hearing Gui say that to him. Never had he ever asked for permission! Furious, Prince knew this was Gui's way to handle the outburst of the elf, in which he probably blamed himself for always being so incessently annoying, thinking that he could not be such a burden to Prince if he asked for permission for his usual skinship. Prince grumbled and stamped his foot.  
"Yes, you moron! Now get over here!" he snapped and almost pulled Gui closer, who hugged the elf. Returning the hug, Prince quickly turned it into a bear hug, clenching his arms tightly around Gui's chest. The bard winced and Prince let go. "That's for walking on eggshells around me. Don't do that again."  
"Ok." Gui coughed, having lost all air during Prince's embrace. While Gui was still coughing and catching his breath, Lolidragon entered the room.  
"Prince." she said and the elf looked over at her, as did everybody else. Opting to stay silent, she only beckoned him with her finger to follow him and he did, skipping a bit to catch up to her. She lead the way to a closeby empty room which, upon entry, Prince recognized as the one where he had shouted at her last time. Feeling a bit embarrassed about it, he scratched the back of his head.  
"They agreed to it." Lolidragon said.  
"A-agreed to it? To what?" the elf asked and saw her role her eyes.  
"To you having a second character!" she told him. "It took me a while to persuade them, but they agreed to letting you have a second character, giving you a chance to get out of your Prince role now and then. They probably fear bad publicity if you snap in some way."  
"Hehe... did you have to blackmail them in my stead?"  
"No, I didn't. It was close, but they caved before I could start in on that threat of yours... you weren't really planning it, were you?" she asked, but saw him shrug his shoulders and finally shrugged her own. "Anyway, you can have a second character. But, there are conditions."  
"Of course there are. What are they?"  
Lolidragon let her eyes stray to the ceiling and began to count the conditions off on her fingers.  
"One, you have to buy another Second Life Set, so that your other character can be installed on that headband."  
"Well d'uh." Prince couldn't help but say that. It was a pretty obvious and simple condition, although the price of Second Life had been jacked up a lot lately, but thanks to his job as the spokesperson, he had been paid so much he could easily afford another one. Lolidragon rolled her eyes and grinned, agreeing that it was a stupid idea to have to tell him of that condition.  
"Two, when it gets delivered I want you to call me, I'll give you a note with my phone number, so that I will be the GM to help you create your character, get to know what you'll look like and what you'll be going by so that, and this is the third condition, I can PM you any time we need Prince."  
Prince listened to the conditions and they all seemed pretty straightforward, except the last one. Cocking his head to the side, he tried to figure it out.  
"When you need Prince?" he asked.  
"D'uh! Even if you have another character to play as, Prince is important. We can cool it on the whole citylord thing and give you some R and R on that, but we still need you for the band. And how would that work out if nobody can contact you and get Prince?" Lolidragon explained, rolling her eyes again, wondering how he didn't get that part. Prince laughed sheepishly and nodded, realizing what a rather dumb question it had been.  
"So, if I get a PM from you and you need Prince, I just have to log off and log back on as Prince?"  
"In a nutshell, yes." the thief nodded. "Just think of your role as Prince as a part-time job. But I hope you won't ignore Prince entirely."  
"Nah. Thank you, Loli!" Prince said and hugged Lolidragon on impulse, rushing out of the room in a happy daze. He returned to the room where everybody else was, Gui having recovered nicely and quickly looked at everyone and couldn't stop grinning. "Short news. I might not be coming online so often anymore-"  
"What!" the surprise went through the entire room, but before things could go out of control, Prince lifted his hands in a soothing matter.  
"Don't worry, I'll still be here and work and all that. I might just be busy. Oh, and Gui," the elf turned towards the bard with a big grin. "Don't slack off without me, cause lessons where you act like you have brain-damage are very hard to understand. Okay? If you don't pull yourself together, I'll end up failing and I'll have to hurt you."  
"...I'll try." Gui sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**People seem to already love this story!**

**This really makes me happy, you guys. And look up Hug Pillows if you don't know them.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

As soon as Lan had gotten up the next morning, she had turned her computer on and gone to the homepage of Second Life to order her new set. Just for fun, she decided to look at the various kinds of sets they sold to see if there was anything worthwile. The cheapest set was, of course, the basic one. It contained the headband and the instruction manual and nothing else, only the essentials to play Second Life. Another set was called deluxe, giving you the option to order the headband and its visor in a certain color. Premium, as they called it, had everything the previous sets included and more, like coupons that had codes on them that could be redeemed for increased EXP or Drops for a certain time frame. Scrolling further, Lan stared and frowned, trying to make her mind work backwards.  
A Prince set.  
They had a **Prince** set!  
Checking the description, it said that the Prince set had the headband and visor in Prince's two favorite colors, red and black. Shaking her head, Lan sighed. Anybody who actually knew Prince was well aware of the fact that his favorite color was pink. Then again, maybe it didn't market so well. Further on, the set also included two cards that were hand-signed by the infamous blood elf... thinking back, Lan remembered having to sign way too many of them. And a lifesize poster of Prince as well. And that set had sold the most, counting five million orders and increasing. Feeling a flush rising in her cheeks, Lan couldn't help but feel a bit pleased that she, or rather Prince, was so popular that everybody wanted that set. But she felt horrified, thinking how many fangirls had that set and what they were doing with the lifesize poster... Lan tried to quickly think of something else. Considering she owned the basic set, she wondered if she should get it again since she really didn't need any of the other stuff. And how narcisstic would it be of her, ordering the Prince set! Knowing herself, though, ordering a second basic set might end up with her confusing the headbands and logging in as the wrong character. So she decided to order the deluxe set and chose pink as the color for her headband. Differently colored headbands would make it easier, she hoped. The confirmation gave her the usual waddle-daddle of the delivery taking two or more days and Lan signed off, hurrying to get ready for school.  
When she ran down the stairs, she almost collided with Yang and gasped loudly out of surprise and shock that he was actually up, or at least out of the house, before she was. Well, since she was running into him he wasn't that much earlier than her, but still.  
"What a lovely voice you have in the morning, dear sister." Yang teased her. "So very similar to those dulcent tones you exhibited a few days ago. You did well, not bottling the anger inside and letting it out." He patted her shoulder for a second, but kept his hand there and his expression darkened, a sadistic smile stretching his lips and anger glinting in his eyes. "By the way... why did you disappear with Lolidragon earlier?"  
"Yang." Lan simply said and gave him a very exasperated look. "You're talking to _me_. Not a fanboy."  
"Still. When my potential love interest and my sister, who plays a guy, disappear together I have every right to worry."  
"But not to know why. Loli and I talked about something important. That's all I'm telling you and all you need to know, got it?"  
While her brother often called her the radiostation for blathering about secrets or important matters, he was just as big an offender himself. After creating Prince, she had told him that she was playing as a guy. And amongst the first things he did, after laughing at her, was to tell Zhuo that Lan was a 'tranny' character. Then again, maybe he was just jealous that the 'tranny' had been with the hottest girl in Second Life when they first met.  
Both were quiet on the way to school and went to their separate seats when they entered the classroom. Being mildly aware of the chattering of her classmates around her, her mind still happy about the order and prospect of a new character, she heard snippets.  
From what she heard, the class was wondering how out of it Min was going to be today. Maybe his lack of concentration would be so big that he forgot the lesson, not bothering to come in at all or that he might suddenly switch to a topic that belonged to a different subject. Some other, although very few girls, were worried, wondering what was going on with him that caused him to wigg out that much. And they all wanted to be his private nurse...  
"I kinda feel bad about this now..." Lan muttered and caught Jing's interest right away. And whatever interested Jing also interested Yun. And vice-versa.  
"Bad about what? Telling Lolidragon and everybody else off?" the girl asked, tightening her curly pigtails with a butterfly clip.  
"No... well, a bit. But I meant about Gui. If I had known my absence would make him lose it this much..." Lan answered. "I hope he pulled himself together by now."  
"You were online yesterday, right? So he should be fine." Yun guess and shrugged his shoulders, straightening up because Min had just entered the room. Min stood at the desk for a minute and let his eyes wander over the students in the room, a question dimly burning in his eyes.  
"Good morning." he said and gave them all a smile that was more dazzling than any he had given them over the last week and several girls swooned in their seats. Lan was slightly affected as well, feeling her bishie-senses tingling and silently cursed Min for doing one of those smiles in school. He knew how troublesome they were! She hadn't seen them that often herself, the last time was when she had told Gui to use one for the audience at the Adventurer's Tournament, to show up that damn Phoenix Team and what it really meant to be a bishie. And then Yu Lian had said how Wolf was the most handsome man of the bunch...  
Giggling silently, Lan tried to pry her thoughts away from those times and concentrate on the literature history Min was teaching just then.

* * *

Prince was humming to himself, shuffling the papers spread out in front of him and let his eyes skim over each for a minute or two. With the current cutbacks, Infinite City was running at low speed on a lot of things and would remain this way for some months until the expansion was done, like a sauce left simmering on the backburner for hours to intensify the flavor. Realizing that he was getting hungry and mixing up food with work again, Prince decided to finish this quickly and then head to the restaurant and grab something to bite... maybe borscht. He had a sudden craving for it for some reason...  
Looking at the papers regarding security, the elf almost burst out laughing when he saw what had happened. Wolf had gotten a temporary solution for the problem and had asked Sunshine and Kenshin and a few others to take over for now, promising to pay whatever he could. But he had been declined by all of them. Sunshine and Kenshin didn't care for money and Fairsky, who was always with Sunshine on his patrols, didn't need it. Cold Fox, who barely ever left Kenshin's side, refused it as well. What Prince could gather from the reports when it came to Kenshin and Cold Fox' turns, they all consisted of short lists of people 'getting annoying' and 'shutting up when confronted'.  
As long as the problem was solved, he didn't care how Cold Fox and Kenshin might confront people...  
Although once the concerts started, Sunshine and Fairsky would be travelling and unavailable for that job. Maybe Kenshin, too, if he decided to come along. Okay and Cold Fox, too. Then again, Kenshin always looked very bored during the concerts... but he always looked bored. Maybe he wouldn't want to travel this time. Prince stood up and started sorting the papers into their respective piles again when he heard the door opening behind him and somebody entering.  
"Your Highness!" Gui's voice chirped happily, seeing his beloved elf online after hearing that he would be online less from now on.  
"Morning, Gui!" Prince chirped back, turning towards the bard and giving him a smile that stretched from one ear to the next. Gui, having been approaching the elf, stopped in his tracks and looked at him surprised for a second before he seemed to relax, a slight blush on his cheeks.  
"Your Highness is more beautiful today than ever. You are positively glowing. Did something good happen?" he asked.  
"Yeah, your lesson made sense again. Puts me into a good mood." Prince admitted and turned towards the papers again. A shadow fleeted across Gui's face, then it disappeared a second later and he looked rather cautiously and curious at the elf, wondering if this opportunity was the best to ask.  
"Prince, about class..."  
"By the way, did you know that there's a Second Life: Prince set?" the elf asked, not realizing he was interrupting the bard who seemed to have lost all courage.  
"Of course I knew." Gui admitted and saw Prince turn towards him suddenly, his face filled with horror and then switching to one full of caution.  
"Please tell me you're not one of those who bought it... Gui? You didn't, right?" Prince wondered, hoping against hope that he used a different one. Instead of consoling the elf with those words, Gui merely looked to the side and a treacherous blush lay on his cheeks for a second.  
"Oh god..." Prince sighed heavily and hid his beetred face in his hands. "...what about the poster and the cards?"  
"Mh? The cards are in a drawer of my desk. And the poster hangs on one of the walls. Why do you ask?"  
"No reason...!" the elf said fast with a cough, avoiding to look at Gui.  
Prince didn't dare tell him. For all Prince knew, hundreds of his fangirls might've bought that set and were using the lifesize post of Prince to create them, those handmade Hug Pillows... and somehow, a tiny part of Prince's brain, had been wondering and worried if Gui had the set and used the poster in such a manner.  
"Really?" Gui wondered and tried to see Prince's hidden face, but he kept averting his eyes.  
"Prince, thank god you're online!" Lolidragon suddenly called from the doorway and waved him over. "It's about the concert. Come on."  
The elf nodded and rushed over, giving a short wave to Gui and was grateful to get away just in time.  
"Prince, I had a question regarding the class...!" Gui called after him.  
"Later...!" Prince called back and hurried away with Lolidragon, his face still fiery red. And Lolidragon's smirking and nudging and inquiries weren't helping. Knowing that he wouldn't tell her, the thief just shrugged her shoulders and lead the way through several rooms of the castle, finally stopping at a door that looked like any other and opened it, entering the room with Prince. Ice Phoenix and Fairsky were already in the room, pushing racks full of costumes around the room. Frowning, Prince remembered the last meeting really well and was sure that there was no mention of new clothes.  
"We are still going with reusing the old costumes, right?" he asked, wondering if they had scraped some money off of Yu Lian for at least one new outfit, so that Ice Phoenix wouldn't keep looking at him like she wanted to bite his head off for ruining a good business opportunity. Although he didn't understand why, he'd much prefer people came to the concerts to listen to him instead of looking at his clothes.  
"Yeah, we are." Lolidragon told him and held up the measuring tape. "But we gotta make sure they still fit." She grinned and earned a look from Prince, but he obliged and let her take his measurements again. He kept insisting that he wasn't going to grow anymore and got just plain ignored.  
After Lolidragon wrote the measurements down and compared them to the old one, she pointed to a rack to the left of Fairsky and the girl handed one to Prince.  
"If there are no changes in the measurements, they'll fit." Prince told the thief, but she just waved him off and both knew he just didn't want to change. Rolling his eyes, Prince grabbed the measuring tape and proceeded to tie Lolidragon's ankles and wrists together, ignoring her protests.  
"Safety reasons, you know that." he said when he finished and threw the costume over his shoulder, walking to the back of the room filled with racks and stuff, covered with cloth to create a makeshift cabin to dress and undress in.  
"Oh sure, tie me up but not Ice Phoenix or Fairsky! Totally fair." Lolidragon called after him, wriggling to get free of the tape.  
"You're the worst of the bunch. Ice Phoenix is second to that... and since Fairsky is so obsessed with Sunshine now, I don't need to worry about her at all." It was barely a minute later that Prince emerged from the chaos of the back of the room in one of his old costumes from a previous concert. The entire outfit was black and frayed at the seams, making it look like clothes about as old as Prince was himself and the sleeveless coat almost dragged on the floor.  
"I told you, I don't grow anymore and hence the clothes will fit just fine." the elf said and Lolidragon just stuck her nose into the air, still confined by the tape.  
"There were minimal changes." she retorted and let her eyes wander over Prince's body, hovering somewhere around his groin area.  
"Get your eyes away from there." Prince hissed and turned to head back to change again. "This fit, the rest will fit, got it? Besides, what about the others, don't you have to check if their clothes still fit?"  
"We already took care of everyone else. You're the last cause your outfit changes so often." Lolidragon explained and finally got herself free.  
A clatter came from the back and Prince stopped in his tracks to the changing cabin. He didn't trust his ears for a second and felt like turning back, making Lolidragon say that to his face so that he knew she wasn't yanking his chain.  
"Are you telling me that you had Wicked and Gui in here, changing, and you didn't tell me? Urgh!" Prince grumbled frustrated and changed in the cabin at high speed, leaving the room afterwards and three amused and confused girls behind. And he almost ran into Gui in the hall.  
"What are you doing here?" Prince asked since he had left Gui in the meeting hall just a few minutes ago.  
"I had a question, remember? And when Lolidragon called you over, I figured what it was about and decided to wait for you." the bard explained, then looked at the door rather questioningly. "I thought you'd take much longer than this."  
"Yeah, well... anyway, your question?"  
"Ah, yes, it was regarding class. But also..." Gui hesitated for a second and then looked rather amused. "Were you worried about me buying the Prince set?"  
"What, no, no, of course not!" Prince answered immediately and blushed. "I was just worried... no, I mean thinking... no, um... I was just thinking, if you have a poster and cards from me in your home, why you become so weird when I'm absent from Second Life."  
Gui stared at Prince for a few seconds and then grinned, finally bursting into a series of chuckles he was trying to contain.  
"Prince, those are mere things. I'm not happy because I can see you in Second Life, it's your personality that I miss when you're gone." he explained, still amused.  
"I-I see..." the elf mumbled, feeling his face heating up and stared at the ground. He wondered if he should take that as a compliment, but mostly noticed that Gui was still chuckling and seemed to have been distracted enough to not ask Prince the question regarding class right then.  
Prince must've dodged a bullet there.

* * *

Lan tore through half the apartment from the kitchen to the door when the bell rang. Skidding to a halt at the door, she opened it and saw the delivery man, the large package tucked under one arm and the form in his free hand. Plopping her namestamp where he needed it and getting the box handed over to her, the delivery man left and Lan closed the door again. She took a minute to proudly look at the black package with the Second Life logo printed on it, then remembered Lolidragon's various conditions... how was she supposed to call Lolidragon now? Whenever she had been online as Prince up to now, never had Lolidragon given her a note, told her the phone number in a general conversation or over PM. It's like she had completely forgotten about it.  
"Oh well." Lan sighed and thought, worst case scenario, she'd just log on as Prince and check if Lolidragon was online. And if she was, tell her to go into GM-Mode, so she could create Lan's new character who then had to log off and log on with the new headband... Lan's head was already spinning.  
Luckily, Yang was out doing something with Zhuo, so Lan didn't have to hide the box in any way or worry about him finding out. Running into her room, she opened the box and saw her custom-colored pink headband with fitting visor in one bag, the instruction manual somewhere underneath, then she saw the note. A white note was taped on top of the bag containing the headband.  
'Call me when you want to create your character' it said and below that was a phone number written. Now being a better time than any, Lan grabbed her cellphone and punched in the phone number and waited for the call to be taken.  
"Yep?" a voice answered and although she hadn't heard it in real life ever before, Lan immediately recognized Lolidragon's voice.  
"It's me. I want to create the character as soon as possible." Lan said.  
"Good. Give me five minutes to log on as a GM and then log on." she answered and hung up.  
Putting the phone away, Lan felt excited and wished she could start right away, but decided to use the five minutes by unpacking the headband, trying it on and adjusting the straps so it fit comfortably. And then she spent the next four minutes sitting on her bed, tapping her legs impatiently, waiting for time to pass so she could finally do things with the new set. When finally, _finally_, the minutes passed and she could log on,  
Lan lay down in bed and turned the headband on.

* * *

She found herself in the character creation room, with its metall floor and walls that were so dark it looked like she was standing on thin air. Looking around, the place lit up a little more and she saw the high up chair in which the GM sat that overlooked the character creation, recognizing Lolidragon despite the very different outfit and the large helmet obscuring most of her face.  
"Hey, Loli." Lan said.  
"Hello and welcome to Second Life, a virtual reality game with a realism setting of 99%." GM-Lolidragon said, sounding like a recorded message. "Before proceeding..."  
"Wait. Do I have to listen to this again? I already know it." the girl asked, weirded out by the wall of text she was going to receive.  
"Every player gets only one character, so they would only hear it once." the other replied simply. "What with you getting a second character, we had to alter a few things so the system wouldn't recognize you as already having a character. Short form, yes, you do have to hear this."  
Lan sighed and hung her head, motioning for Lolidragon to proceed with the obligatory talk.  
"Before proceeding into the game, you must create your character. Please be aware that every player can only have one character," she continued, finding her words rather ironic just then. "who will share your looks but can be altered to a certain extent. Start with the race. Second Life has a variety of races, ranging from humans to elves and angelics, shape-shifters and demons, which come in several sub-races." As she was telling her this, various holograms appeared, portraying the many races and species found in Second Life. Cocking her head from one side to another, Lan contemplated her decision.  
Up till Second Life, she had always chosen human as her race since she barely found any difference between it and other races. Prince had been turned into an elf, against her decision because elf Prince looked hotter than human Prince, according to Lolidragon back then... and she had been right, Lan had to agree with her there.  
But by now, Lan had to admit to herself that she had rather fallen in love with the long pointy ears of elves. Speaking of, Wicked was a dark elf and Gui a demon...  
"Can I see myself as a demonic elf? Or whatever race Gui picked." Lan asked and smoke poofed in front of her several times, showing various holograms.  
"The elven demon race includes the regular form, as well as the Dark Elf and various other forms." Lolidragon told her, pointing to the holograms. All of them were basically built like Lan with pointy ears. The one right in front of her looked barely any different, but the one to her left had a tanned skin.  
And she stared dumbstruck at the example form to her right.  
The skin was of a midnight blue kind of color, but it had a sheen of purple on it, and a white swirly pattern was running up on the legs and arms, even on one side of the face. The hair was turned white, the eyes were just white sockets and the ears seemed to be slightly spiked in form.  
"Oh... wow..." the girl finally said and wondered for a second what kind of sub-species this was. And somehow she wondered if, when he created his character, Gui had been shown an example like this as well. "Um... no demon race. Just elf, I guess." The examples of Lan in the various demon races disappeared, being replaced by holograms of her in elven form. Aside from the elf Lan with light skin and the one with dark skin, being the Dark Elf example, there was one with ears that seemed even longer and pointier than the others, heading up from the head rather than outwards. It didn't look too different from others, but it had two thin green lines painted on the cheekbones and some sort of symbol on the back of the left hand.  
"The elf race is separated into the light and dark elf race, as well as the elementary kinds. What you see on your left is the example of the Wind Elf, an elf with a high affinity for speed and a natural ability to use spells that focus around the element of wind. It has a high resistances to wind attacks, but suffers greater damage from earth-based attacks. In similar fashion, the other elemental elves are the same, varying in their elemental spirits, with fire weak against water and vice-versa. And I'm sorry, Lan, but I am obligated to say this to any new player..." Lolidragon admitted. "Prince is of the elven race, with a strong affinity to fire attacks but does not belong to the elemental elven race. He is a normal elf."  
Lan gave Lolidragon a look, feeling a kind of resentment towards the company, telling every new player what the spokesperson and most admired player was, probably causing hundreds or even thousand of new players to pick the elf race so they could be 'just like Prince'. Shaking her head and sighing, Lan pointed at the elf that was just like the one Prince was. Not because she cared about that, but because she rather liked the look of it.  
All holograms showing examples of the various races disappeared except the one Lan had chosen which remained.  
"While your character will share your looks, you can choose to customize your appearance to a certain extent."  
"Hair- and eyecolor, right?" Lan asked.  
"Amongst other things." Lolidragon answered.  
"Hmmm..." Lan went. Actually, a thought immediately rushed through her head. "...can I see myself with Prince's coloring? Just to see what it looks like." And she almost burst out laughing, seeing her elf-self with white hair and red eyes. So this was what a female Prince would look like, Lan thought and giggled, trying to stop herself. But it just looked so weird. She knew she was Prince and all, knew that Prince would look like this had she chosen that coloring back then, not to mention playing as a girl. Suppressing anymore giggles, Lan waved her hand dismissively.  
"Nah, just darken my hair a bit and leave the eyes brown, too." she told Lolidragon and it was done. The elf Lan now had a darker shade of brown hair, almost heading into the brown-black area, that reached halfway down her back. "Hm... what else can I change?"  
"Well, bald players can choose to have a set of hair again." Lolidragon admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "Weight distribution... like, make fat players thin."  
"Wow..." the girl went, surprised at how players might really look different from their real life self. "So... like... what about... endowment?"  
"Huh?"  
"Just asking! Because, you know, some of the female players I saw had really big breasts. Okay, Rose's really are that big, but, like, with you..."  
"What!" Lolidragon snapped. Lan quickly waved her arms, desperate to explain herself.  
"Ah, well, yours are really big and I was just wondering if they're real or if there really is an option to increase breast size!" Lan babbled. "...Is there?"  
"You want your breasts bigger?" the GM asked, slumping her shoulders with exhaustion.  
"...please. If possible."  
Lolidragon shrugged her shoulders and put in some commands, changing Lan's gaming figure to gain an entire cupsize in a second. Lan stared a bit, feeling a mix of happiness over having them now, but also of sadness over not having them in real life. The setting was saved.  
"Which continent do you want your character to start out on?" Lolidragon continued. "Second Life has a total of five continents, each with their own theme, cities and available dungeons. You can pick the East, South, West, North and Central Continent. Each continent is led by an Overlord... Prince rules the central one."  
"How often will Prince still be mentioned during character creation?" Lan asked impatiently.  
"Depending on your choice, a few or several more times..."  
"What the hell..." Lan sighed. "I want to start on the Central Continent."  
Lolidragon cocked her head to the side, staring intently at Lan.  
"Are you sure? Aside from us currently going through an economical crisis, the inns are full up... and there's a really high chance you'll run into us."  
"Hey, I may not like the job of Overlord, but I still love the central continent very much. I don't know the other ones, except the eastern one... and if I picked that, that stupid peacock would bother me all the time. Besides..." she huffed, looking superior. "Don't PMs not work cross-continentially?"  
"Touché." Lolidragon admitted. "But I would still get a hold of you somehow. Are you sure you want to be on the central continent?"  
"Yes." Lan said and the system registered the starting point of her character. She waited for the naming screen to pop up.  
"Please choose your job next." Lolidragon said instead. "Second Life contains a variety of job classes with their own advantages, as well as disadvantages, equipment and abilities that can be used. Please be aware that your starting parameters will be determined at random upon your first log-in."  
"Job? Pick my job? Now?" Lan wondered. Trying to figure it out, she scratched her head and frowned. "Don't I become a Novice first, level and do the job change?"  
Lolidragon actually lifted the visor of her helmet to give her a weird look.  
"You didn't read the instruction manual, did you?"  
"I didn't read it the first time around, so why would I read it this time?"  
"That thing was renewed..." Lolidragon sighed, shaking her head. "We decided to obliterate the Novice class entirely. With the way things are running now, players pick what job class they want to play and enter the game from the beginning in said class, with a starting weapon and minor equipment for some help. It gives players a chance to get to know the class better from the start, because we had instances where some players had trouble fighting in the game, because they didn't know their class that well or even what weapon and armor they could equip."  
Lan nodded at that information. Sounded good, giving everybody a little heads up about their chosen job class and a little help on the side.  
Thinking of what job she was going to choose, she hesitated. She loved being a warrior. Playing as Prince had shown her the fun of lifting a sword,slashing at enemies and generally getting covered in blood, sweat and guts and the rush of pride when monsters disappeared that she had killed herself. But knowing herself, if she chose warrior again, she might end up going crazy like she originally did as Prince... she might be called the **other** Blood Elf.  
Or the Blood Queen and people would start calling her and Prince the Blood Couple.  
"Well, wouldn't the fangirls be _happy_ about that...!" Lan sighed out loud, earning a confused look from Lolidragon. "Nothing..."  
Maybe she should pick being a mage then. She had played mages in the past a lot. She liked being in the backrow, attacking from afar, causing monsters to die without them knowing what had hit them. And even if she was confronted by some aggressive monsters that attacked first, she always laid down a firewall around herself and watched, laughing, how they just kept walking into the firewall, taking their HP off bit by bit and dying.  
Leveling as a mage was so easy.  
"Please view the list of available job classes." Lolidragon said and a white box popped up in front of Lan, listing the various classes and information about them. Staring at the long list, she skimmed at some names and frowned, finally straightening up. Leaning down again, she read some of the names one more time, then stood straight and looked up at Lolidragon.  
"Alchemist? Ninja? And what are these Rune Knights and all the other classes? They weren't there last time." she said, demanding information.  
"Of course they weren't!" Lolidragon sighed exhausted and slid in her seat. "With the various patches, we also included new job classes for more variety. That's also why the Novice class was taken out. All the information about the new classes was in the instruction manual..."  
Lan cursed herself, thinking that she should've taken a peek into that thing after all.  
"Can I look at the short information list of the classes?" she asked and Lolidragon nodded. The white box changed and was more laid out, easier to digest.

**Alchemist  
**Capable of creating Potions and other tinctures with monster drops.  
Capable of equipping Swords or Axes.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, Low Speed.

**Archer  
**Attacker from the back row with sharp eyes.  
Learns certain buffs.  
Contains subclasses **Bard** (Male) and **Dancer** (Female).  
Capable of equipping Bow and Arrow.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, High Speed.

**Bard**,  
Subclass of **Archer**.  
Can only be chosen by male players.  
Capable of equipping Bow and Arrow or Instruments.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, High Speed.

**Berserker**  
Strong fighters that lose control in battle.  
Almost like a monster itself.  
Incapable of equipping any type of weapon.  
Very High p. Attack, High Defense, Very Low Speed.

**Dancer**  
Subclass of **Archer**.  
Capable of equipping Bow and Arrow or Whips.  
Can only be chosen by female players.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, High Speed.

**Geomancer**  
Subclass of **Mage**.  
Learns spells of all eight elements.  
Capable of equipping Rods or Staffs.  
Very Low p. Attack, Low Defense, Low Speed.

**Gunner  
**Fighter using any type of bullet weapon.  
Can fight close-by or long-range.  
Capable of equipping Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns or Gatling Guns.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, Average Speed.

**Lancer**  
Fighter using any type of bladed weapon.  
Learns certain buffs.  
Capable of equipping Spears or Lances.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, High Speed.

**Mage**  
Attacker focusing on magical abilities.  
Learns spells of two specified elements.  
Contains subclass **Geomancer**.  
Capable of equipping Rods or Staffs.  
Very Low p. Attack, Low Defense, Low Speed.

**Monk**  
Subclass of **Priest**.  
Learns healing spells and buffs.  
Capable of equipping Maces or Gloves.  
Very Low p. Attack, Low Defense, Low Speed.

**Necromancer**  
Subclass of the **Summoner**.  
Learns spells of the dark element and summoning spells.  
Capable of equipping Rods or Staffs.  
Very Low p. Attack, Low Defense, Low Speed.

**Ninja**  
Fighters with a lot of versatility.  
Learns spells and throwing skills.  
Capable of equipping Kunai, Knives or Shuriken.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, Very High Speed.

**Priest**  
Supportive class.  
Learns healing spells and buffs.  
Contains subclass **Monk**.  
Capable of equipping Rods, Staffs or Maces.  
Very Low p. Attack, Average Defense, Low Speed.

**Rune Knight**  
Fighter that can uses magic to infuse weapon.  
Learns spells to infuse weapon with elemental attacks.  
Capable of equipping Swords or Axes.  
High p. Attack, Average Defense, Average Speed.

**Summoner**  
Summons monsters for protection and battle.  
Learns summoning skills.  
Contains subclass **Necromancer**.  
Capable of equipping Rods, Staffs or Books.  
Very Low p. Attack, Low Defense, Low Speed.

**Thief  
**Fighter with great money-making potential.  
Capable of equipping Swords or Knives.  
Average p. Attack, Average Defense, Very High Speed.

**Warrior  
**Fighter class preferred by Prince.  
Capable of equipping Swords, Axes, Maces or Knives.  
High p. Attack, Average Defense, Average Speed.

Lan held her head, which was swimming with information about the new and old classes. Although she felt angry at the company for mentioning Prince again, wondering how many warriors had been made since then. Particularly elven warriors who fought with swords and learn skills that have to do with fire. Somehow, she felt like a cheap sell-out regarding Prince. Could it count as selling out? Maybe, she wasn't sure. But her current problem was choosing a class. Writing off warrior and mage, to protect her identity as Prince and lack of fun, respectively, she looked at the newer classes. Somehow the ninja sounded like a lot of fun. But she remembered other games she had played that also had ninja classes, and she always heard the ones with that class complain about how expensive it was. And she tended to lose her money, always getting lost on ferries.  
Maybe the alchemist was a good choice then, she could easily replenish the money she lost then.  
"Mh... Lancer. I want to be a Lancer." Lan decided and watched as her elf-self had the class Lancer chosen and the clothes changed. She now wore a halter top that showed her midriff, sleeves that started at her upper arm and flared out, slit all the way up. The pants were the same, slit until midway up the thighs so she could move easier in them and revealing her legs caped in indigo nylons with high heeled shoes on her feet. The whole outfit was white with a purple hem and Lan instantly fell in love with it. It was sporty, easy to move in and just a little bit sexy.  
"Please insert your character's name." Lolidragon told her, happy to approach the end of this thing. A white naming screen box popped up in front of Lan.  
"...Xiao Lan." she said and the name appeared... and after a few seconds, the system declared that the name wasn't taken yet.  
_(System Announcement: Player 'Xiao Lan' has been registered.)  
_"We're done?" Lan asked excitedly, bouncing in place and ready to enter the game.  
"Yes. Oh god, this took an hour..." Lolidragon muttered, looking at her watch. "Oh! Um... Lan...?"  
"What?" she asked and saw Lolidragon slapping her hands together apologetically.  
"Could you log in as Prince? There was this discussion about the tour going on earlier where we need you."  
"What!" Lan gasped and groaned, annoyed that she had to wait _again_ before she could finally enter the game and play as her new character.  
Stupid conditions.


	3. Chapter 3

**I just remembered, I haven't given credit for this story idea.**

**The idea came from something Schwann said in a comment in the Half Prince Anthology, so thank you, Schwann!**

**And I'm unsure how later chapters will be updated. This story is supposed to be more of a backburner thing.**

**Also, please take a few minutes to briefly read over the last chapter as a few things have been added.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

Gui studied Prince in his chair, slouching with a natural grace as he read the papers in front of him. They had just finished a meeting about the upcoming concerts, having discussed in which city they'll start before touring the rest of the continent and finishing in Infinite City. And Gui had watched Prince then, too, and noticed a fine nerv twitching next to his eye the entire time, like he hated being there and having to do this.  
Even now, the nerve twitched off and on.  
Carefully, Gui approached Prince.  
"Didn't Your Highness say that you were not going to come online so often anymore?" he asked cautiously, not wanting to upset him. But he couldn't help but wonder. Prince's outburst towards Lolidragon, not realizing that everybody else had heard him as well, had barely been a week ago. And despite his insistence that he hated his duties as Overlord, as a reverence to the entire Second Life populance and wished he had never entered Second Life, he had been online every night since. Everybody had agreed to lower the workload on Prince, but he hadn't known about that until he came online.  
Prince tore his eyes from the papers and leaned back into his chair, looking up at Gui with a wistful grin.  
"I want to, but Loli keeps calling me back for stuff." he admitted.  
"So if Lolidragon were to leave you alone, you wouldn't be here?"  
"Yeah... do you _want_ me to stay away?" Prince asked him and got out of the chair, walking around it to stand next to Gui.  
"No. N-not at all..." Gui hastily answered, flushing slightly. "I'm quite happy that Your Highness is online. Although... I wouldn't want you to stay online for my sake..." Prince wanted to say something, but the door burst open and Doll rushed in, almost stumbling over her own feet as she rushed towards the two men. She stopped just in time before knocking into them and had to catch her breath for a second.  
"Prince-gégé, you have to go outside!" she begged him and gripped his arm, pulling him towards the door.  
"Why? Doll, what's wrong?" the elf asked, alarmed at her sudden appearance, but Doll just shook her head and kept dragging him into the hallway, Gui following to see what was going on. Doll led them through various hallways, down staircases and every place they passed seemed deserted, but still filled. A general rumble of voices was constantly heard and slowly got louder when they reached the ground floor.  
The entrance hall was chaos.  
Wolf was kneeling on the floor next to the wall, talking in a soothing voice to several people sitting or lying on the floor, sometimes healing them, otherwise handing them a potion against status ailments or wounds they had. Yu Lian was among the wounded one, holding her arm that had a nasty cut on it, but still hissing commands at Lolidragon and other players. The thief herself was standing close to the open entrance portal with two other players. Nan Gong Zui and Wicked were rushing with the Infinite army into the hall just then, weapons drawn.  
"How are you holding up?" Lolidragon asked the player closest to her, Prince finally saw him and it was Yun. He was stretching one hand in front of himself, the other was held close to his face and he was constantly muttering under his breath. From outside, the sound of things bouncing off of something was heard.  
"I'm fine...!" he snapped, quickly returning to his muttering.  
"Jing, your ofuda!" the thief told the taoist, who nodded and rushed out of the portal, her enchanted cards clutched tightly in her hands.  
"Loli!" Prince called and rushed towards her side. "What's going on?"  
"The people are revolting!" Lolidragon snapped, signalling to Wicked and Nan Gong Zui. "They're demanding to see Prince!"  
"Wait!" Prince said loudly and stood in front of Lolidragon. "Then won't they calm down once they see me?"  
Lolidragon actually grabbed Prince by the collar and shook him, then turned him around with force so he could see the outside.  
"Do those people look like they'll calmy listen?" she snapped.  
Prince took in the view he saw behind the barrier Yun had erected. The populance of Infinite City was almost pressed up against it, yelling, throwing things, some with a definite drunk color in their face but all of them looking furious. Some began to pound at the barrier, making Yun flinch with pain. Jing was outside, surrounding the perimeter with summoned guards in case the barrier wouldn't hold.  
"Everyone, get ready!" Wicked told his fraction of the army. "Do not harm them, but be forceful if necessary!"  
"Don't!" Prince yelled and put himself in front of the army, his arms spread out widely. "You can't fight them!"  
Wicked, Nan Gong Zui, the army and everyone except Yun was staring at Prince in surprise, wondering if he couldn't see the severity of their situation. It was clear that Yun wouldn't be able to hold up the barrier much longer and Jing's guards couldn't prevent too much themselves. The populance was angry, they weren't going to stop any time soon and wouldn't stop at the castle gate. They'd infiltrate and who knows how far their anger took them.  
"Prince, we don't have any other choice. We aren't going to kill them but drastic times need drastic measures." Wicked tried to explain.  
"I don't want to rule them with violence!" Prince snapped and earned a confused and shocked look from the dark elf.  
"We don't _want_ to hurt them, either."  
But the elf refused to move, only looking up at Wicked with a conflicted expression. He knew. He knew what could happen if the people weren't stopped soon, knew how badly things could turn out. But using force to control them... all they wanted was to see Prince, after all. They wanted to know that he was still there, still with them and hadn't abandoned them. Wasn't that a normal desire?  
"Guys...!" Yun huffed, trying with all his might to hold the barrier up but his Mana was starting to deplete and exhaustion was rising instead.  
"Prince!" Lolidragon hissed. "We have to do something, fast! None of us want to use force to stop them, but if necessary...!"  
The elf looked around, his resistance was lowering, but he still wasn't ready to let the army handle this situation. He began to bite his thumb, hoping that he would get a flash of brilliance that would work out fine without having to resort to any violence.  
"Leave it to me! Yun, please, try to hold out a bit longer! Wicked, Zui, set the army up behind Jing's guards but don't do _any_thing! Even if the barrier breaks, don't move and just defend the castle!" Prince ordered everyone. "Yu Lian, I apologize right away. Sunshine, come with me!"  
And Prince grabbed Sunshine by the wrist as he began to dash up the stairs again. Following his orders, the commanders led the army outside, having them surrounding the inner circle of the barrier and taking over for Jing's summoned guards. Trying to hold his concentration, Yun gulped a Mana Potion down, restoring enough to keep the barrier going for just a bit longer. The angry cries of the crowd intensified, seeing the army positioning themselves behind the barrier.  
"Give us Prince!", "We want to see Prince!", "We don't want anything else!" Similar cries finally merged into one large choir of "We want Prince!" and the ones standing right up against the barrier began to pound against it rhythmically. With horror, everybody in the castle saw the barrier flickering dangerously and disappearing when Yun swayed at the spot and got held up by Lolidragon.  
For a few seconds, the world stopped.  
The angry mob was frozen on the spot and staring at the people opposite them, the barrier that held them back no longer in place. Any second, they would move. Probably attacking whoever got in their way, maybe not even stopping at harming Prince if they got a hold of him.  
_It isn't visible yet, that place where you can just be yourself, Keep searching for it  
The beats of your heart rising to the point, You can't hide them anymore,  
Those strong echoes  
_Everybody stared and turned, looking for the source of that voice. And then they saw him.  
Prince.  
Prince was standing atop the roof of the inn, microphone in hand and singing acappella. Sunshine was sitting on his carpet, hovering a few feet above the elf, clearly having been his measure of transport to get up there. Prince was wearing black leather pants with rows of golden buttons on the side and chains as belts, dozens of delicate and chunky bracelets peeking out from his bloodred long fur-trimmed coat that was only revealing a part of the shirt he was wearing underneath it.  
_Believe in a tomorrow better than yesterday was, Make your way through today  
Don't think of looking downwards, just spread your wings  
And fly off!  
_The people stared open-mouthed at him as he continued to sing, his strong, clear voice echoing through all of Infinite City. They began to cheer, clapping their hands, their initial anger and disappointment apparently forgotten the second they saw Prince. The army sheathed their weapons at the signal of their commanders, who were staring at Prince themselves. Even the injured people and the others of the castle dared to peek out or even step out, listening to Prince. The famous elf finished the song and gave an inaudible sigh, letting his eyes wander over the cheering crowd.  
"I want to apologize to everyone." he said, lifting the microphone to his lips again and signalling everyone quiet down a little with a wave. It took a while, the crowd was calling out to him or cheering, waving at him and clapping their hands in sync. But slowly, they all began to calm down and stared at Prince, wondering what he would say. They felt a slight sense of shame creeping over them... would he yell at them?  
"I want to apologize to everyone for my prolonged absence." Prince repeated. "I was here, but due to management problems, I've been unable to prowl the city... We're currently experiencing some hard times and I know what a strain that will be on you and on us. On everybody... what I meant to say is that..." He began to stutter and stopped, trying to find the right words to express himself to them clearly. But finding none, he laughed sheepishly.  
"I'm sorry. I don't have my usual speechwriter for this one..." he admitted with an embarrassed grin. "I just want to say again how sorry I am. Please forgive me." The people began to cheer again, calling out various ways of saying "We don't blame you" and "No need for you to apologize" and how sorry they were themselves, for having created such a terrible situation and basically forcing him to show himself.  
"I'm happy to hear that." the elf told them. "Things will be rather rough, but please bear with it. And I hope you'll enjoy the upcoming concert tour!" Turning the microphone off, Prince waved at everyone and listened to their cheers and promises of coming to every single concert. Lifting his hand slightly, Sunshine lowered the carpet a bit and grabbed Prince's hand, helping him up onto the transport and flew back to the castle, Prince waving at the crowd again.

* * *

"That song wasn't supposed to be revealed until the second day of the concert...!" Yu Lian sighed horribly, her injured arm wrapped in some gauze. OddSquad, Dark Emperor and the rest of the city heads were sitting at the long table in the meeting hall, discussing Prince's... impromptu mini-concert. Or announcement, if they decided to be rational about the whole thing. But Yu Lian's simmering anger was making it hard to feel good about the problem being solved.  
"I'm sorry." Prince said for the umpteenth time.  
"And you sang for them without demanding pay..."  
"I'm sor-what!" the elf gasped, wondering if the mage was serious. "That would only have pissed them off again!"  
But something in Yu Lian's smirk showed that she had been teasing about that part. She sighed again, putting her head onto her crossed hands.  
"Well, the main thing is that they are calm again." she said. "But I'm shocked that they would react this way..."  
"If I recall correctly, it's been at least a month since Prince has left the castle." Gui offered. "Up to now, they saw Prince fairly regularly. He's always in the city, heading into the restaurant or café. He's never been absent for as long as he has been up to now. They probably missed him."  
And they began to discuss what to do if something like this happened again, or even what they could do to prevent things from going this far again. All the while they were talking, Prince slid further into his seat and let his head hang low, barely paying any attention to what they were saying. His head was buzzing with thoughts, revolving around his new character and how things might have ended up, had Lolidragon not called him back.  
If there had been no discussion needing him, he would be playing as Xiao Lan and finding out how a Lancer fights, having fun senselessly killing monsters, completely ignorant of what was happening in Infinite City... maybe Lolidragon would've called for 'Prince' but... if he hadn't arrived in time...  
"I'm heading to bed." Prince said as he sat up from his chair and walked the length of the table towards the door, not looking at anyone.  
"You do that, Prince." Yu Lian agreed with a slight nod. Everybody was quiet and Prince heard a slight chair scraping when he left the room.  
Standing in the abandoned hallway, he felt a pit in his stomach and he had to force himself to make the first few steps towards the stairs, those wonderful stairs that led to the tower and the spiral staircase that held his private chambers at the end of it. But once he did a few carefuly steps, Prince began to run down the hall and ignored the pit in his stomach travelling up to his throat. He wasn't even really watching out where he was going, but finally ended up almost running into the door leading to his room. Standing there, panting, Prince felt sidestitches.  
Then he heard steps slowly coming up the stairs behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Prince saw Wicked. Considering how closely behind Prince he was, he must've left the meeting hall shortly after him. Wicked was looking at him with a sorrowful, understanding expression.  
"Don't beat yourself up over this. It isn't your fault." he said. Prince wasn't so sure about that. He was the Citylord after all, he should know what his people want, know that showing himself amongst them was something he didn't mind doing... despite the fangirls following him. He should've known... but how could he?  
Prince felt Wicked putting a comforting hand onto his shoulder.  
"I'm just worried." the elf admitted with a trembling voice. "How can I come online less, if my absence causes riots?"

* * *

**Name** Xiao Lan  
**Race** Elf  
**Class** Lancer  
**Level** 1  
**Health** 70/70  
**Mana** 8/8  
**Fame** 0

**Strength** 5  
**Agility** 10  
**Defense** 3  
**Stamina** 2  
**Intelligence** 2  
**Wisdom** 1  
**Luck** 1  
**Charisma** 4

"Ah~ah, where has my luck gone?" Xiao Lan mumbled. "When I was Prince, I was blessed with Strength, Agility _and_ Charisma... maybe the charisma was Loli's doing..." Xiao Lan was standing next to a river, after having logged in for the first time. Not that the decision to do so had been easy on her... after yesterday. Yesterday's riot had shook her up and occupied her mind throughout the day, making her think what she might've done wrong as Prince to have somehow caused it. Maybe she hadn't been paying enough attention? Or somehow offended the people of Infinite City. Even as night came, she was still wondering what to do.  
Should she log in as Prince and wander all around Infinite City, to see how the people were holding up, look for any faults in the city and maybe help with construction, to make things easier on everybody... she suddenly felt the responsibility she had as Prince. But a phone call to Lolidragon had shut her up pretty fast. After explaining to Lolidragon about her emotional dilemma about this, she had been chastised.  
"Just play your damn new character! Why did you even want a new one, if you aren't going to play it because of something like this?" she snapped.  
"Well, of course I want to play her but..." Lan admitted.  
"Don't worry, leave the city and the people to us." the other said in a more gentle voice. "If we need Prince, I'll contact you." Giving in to Lolidragon's suggestion, although it had sounded a bit more like an order, Lan had put on her pink headband and logged in as Xiao Lan.  
She had awoken in the Newbie Village for elf characters and took in the sights of the village, despite probably never entering it again. She had enjoyed it nonetheless, because the last time she had been in there as Prince, fangirls had staked out the place in search for the good-looking elf and forcing Prince to run away. But now that she wasn't playing as Prince, she didn't have to worry about such things happening anymore.  
Shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts, Xiao decided to check out the equipment she had been given. Her weapon which was titled _Bladed Lance_ was basically a wooden stick with a 5 inch blade at the top, and the _Cheap Bracelet_. The bracelet was peeking out from her sleeves now and then, it was quite ugly, a sort of brownish-gray color and looking rather old, like a used tourniquet. Maybe newbies got equipment that was once sold by older players?  
Whatever the case, the bracelet was giving her +1 defense...  
Maybe she was being a bit fast, but that +1 in her defense couldn't make all that much difference considering her defense already sucked, so she would head to the armor shop and buy something better once she got some cash. But while she was thinking of fighting monsters to earn some experience and money, Xiao caught her reflection in the river for a second and leaned over, to look at her in-game appearance a bit more. She really liked the outfit she had been given, the purple fitted well with the darker hair she had chosen.  
And the beautification process had even...  
"Wait a minute..." Xiao muttered to herself, remembering every detail of character creation, and switched to the PM channel. "_Lolidragon? Are you there?_"  
"_...Oh, right, it's you. What is it now?_" Lolidragion answered, afraid that she was gonna get another earful of worrying about Infinite City.  
"_I'm prettier than in real life._" Xiao explained. "_But you never asked me anything about the beautification by thirty percent. What gives?_"  
"_You really should read the instruction manual..._" the thief sighed. "_We decided to beautify everyone automatically. I mean, who _wants_ to be made uglier?_"  
"_I see..._" Xiao answered and closed the PM channel. Well, that matter was explained, then. Thinking no more of it, happy that she was pretty anyway, Xiao gripped her lance and started to walk around, looking for monsters to slay.  
"Good old time..." she hummed to herself, remembering kicking her very first monster to death. "Aha!" Having spotted a Slime Drop a good way ahead, its pale greenish goop blubbing away happily, she started to dash towards it and got ready to attack... but felt her body lunge forwards and fall to the ground.  
"Ow!" the girl hissed and sat up, looking around confused. The ground beneath and around her was pure soft grass with no random twigs or stones in her way, not even thrown away potion bottles she could've tripped over, and even if her shoes were high heeled, that couldn't have made her fall flat on her face. If it had been the shoes, she would've sprained her ankle, that's for sure. Xiao Lan got up and patted some loose grass strands off her knees, wondering what had happened. Was it a glitch? Or maybe a patch? Yeah, the Tripping Patch.  
"Mh..." cocking her head from side to side, she thought back to character creation again. The information had mentioned the speed of every class and Lancer had been listed amongst the ones with a high speed. And her intial parameter had high speed, so did the two speed types merge together and give her super speed? Then again, as Prince, she had been fast as well but not so fast that she would trip... Attaching the spear to the two hooks on the back of her clothes, Xiao Lan tentatively took another step and leaned forward, getting ready to run again, but trying to do so a little slower this time. And she fell again. But, not being a quitter, she continued to do her little running training and forgot about monsters, slowly perfecting how to move with this new speed she had gotten.  
About an hour later, Xiao was leaning her hands on her knees and gasping for air, feeling like her whole body had gone through the grinder.  
Despite running okay now, during the time, she had fallen several more times or even smacked into a tree or two because she didn't watch out.  
"I am going to be sore tomorrow..." Xiao grumbled and straightened up. "Although it would be nice to be this fast in real life. I could sleep in until the last minute..."

* * *

Xiao Lan grinned happily, checking her status panel a few hours later. Spending that time with actually fighting monsters now without the fear of tripping, she had gotten to Level 19 by now, her Strength and Defense had improved along with her Health. And while touring Infinite City, packed as it was, she had sold the Cheap Bracelet at the first opportunity... for three bronze coins.  
Seriously, what a rip-off to give a newbie such a shitty accessory. And selling it had given her less coins than a low-leveled Ant Egg dropped. But despite being happy about getting rid of that ugly thing, she had scraped enough money together to buy two golden anklets which gave her +5 defense! With the horrible point of shopping over, Xiao toured the city a bit slower now, carefully throwing glances at as many people's faces as she could, trying to see their expressions and how they seemed overall. The riot yesterday seemed to be completely forgotten, players were cheerfully walking through the city, buying items in shops or from street vendors, sometimes opening their own little shops in selling unnecessary equipment or drops to Alchemists. Even the players she saw through the windows of the restaurants were happily eating, drinking or playfully nudging other players. Just the way the city used to be.  
Although there were signs of problems here and there.  
Infinite City had three inns at the moment and all of them had 'No Vacany' signs put up at the front, part of the western block of the city had been closed off, preparing for the upcoming expansion and that caused some of the streets to become really clogged. It felt like walking through a mall on sundays, people on every side, walking slowly and generally getting in the way of each other. And still everybody looked happy. Prince's appearance must've mellowed them out. Just as she was thinking this, Xiao heard some familiar tones coming from up ahead and she tore her eyes off the shop display to her left and looked ahead, seeing a small crowd beginning to gather around something. Curious, she stepped closer and to the side to avoid knocking into someone going the opposite direction, only to stop dead in her tracks when her eyes saw the cause of commotion.  
It was Gui.  
Sitting on something that was covered by his long robes, maybe a stool or something, Gui had his head slightly cocked to the side and his eyes closed, playing his guqin to random players passing that tended to stop and listen. Watching him play the instrument in public gave Xiao Lan a sense of dejá vu, although this time she was used to his overly hot bishieness and didn't revert to a pile of mesmerized jelly. Not wanting to meet Gui with this character so soon, or at all if she was honest, she took a step backwards and as she turned, something caught her eye for a second. Looking again, Xiao saw it. What little she did see of his back showed that his hair, which had been braided, was held together in back with a white ribbon... definitely curtesy of Doll.  
Xiao Lan left Infinite City as fast as she could to avoid meeting other players she knew well and opened the world map, looking for nearby dungeons to explore. Hopefully some of them were within her level range... or at least so clearly visible that she wouldn't get lost. Although she trusted herself to still do that, even if she had a map that had a single, simple path going from point A to B. Looking around helplessly, Xiao set off to the right, hoping it was a good way to go. It didn't take her too long and she found herself in a forest area which, looking at the map again, was hopefully the Avian Forest... whatever that meant, she had never entered this area as Prince before. At least, not that she remembered. Heading deeper into the forest, Xiao encountered the first few monsters of this area. They were all of the bird variety, although some opted to hop on the ground, supported by one or two clawy legs and their bodies nothing more than a big feathery ball of black fluff and others were those tiny ones that were hard to see, making them particularly annoying to fight.  
As she was picking up the last of the most recent loot, Xiao straightened up and looked behind her, hearing a lot of rustling noises that seemed to be getting louder. Several feet away, she noticed a player running like hell through the forest, dodging trees rather badly because of constantly looking back at something following him, and then she saw it. It was a large monster, about twice the size of a grown man and it was an owl. A huge owl wearing a green cape and a fitting tophat... Clearly, that guy needed some help. Gripping her lance, Xiao started to dash parallel to the two and grew closer whenever a tree allowed her to do so and finally she was able to see the player and monster well enough.  
"Down!" she called out and the player quickly glanced at her and, in a swandive-like motion, flung himself onto the ground and Xiao Lan was about to slice the owl, but missed. Cursing, she used her speed to kick off against a tree and attacked the owl again, slicing half of its body clear off and she flew through the gap. Sliding to a stop, she turned and watched as the two halves of the owl's body disintegrated into tiny feathers that vanished into thin air. The player was still on the floor and flinched slightly when he heard footsteps approaching, but dared to look up when he realized they were slow.  
"You okay?" Xiao Lan asked and the player stared at her, covered in sweat and leaves caught in her head from the tree she had kicked.  
"Y-yes. How embarrassing..." the player muttered and jumped up, his face flush with heat and brushed off leaves and dirt. "Thanks for the help. I dunno why, but that Owl Baron suddenly appeared and started to chase me..." The player was a young man, about the same height as Xiao Lan was. He had a rather slim build, lightblonde hair that was a bit spikey, purple eyes and had the left sleeve of his shirt pushed up, revealing an arm guard and a glove on his left hand. He was wearing a dark vest over the shirt and dark pants, with a red scarf tied around his neck.  
"High-level monsters appear in every area, but it shouldn't be common this close to the city." Xiao calmed him down. "What job are you?"  
"Ah, I'm an angelic Archer." he told her. "I'm only Level 12... I just started today."  
"I started today myself." Xiao said. "I'm an elven Lancer."  
The two stood for a few seconds in silence and Xiao felt an instant liking of the guy, although she couldn't explain why. He wasn't a bishie, but... not that bad to look at? Wondering why she thought that, perhaps she was so spoiled by Gui and Wicked's good looks, Xiao quickly pushed those thoughts away and wanted to help the guy.  
"If you have any need for help or questions, you can ask me. My level isn't very high, but I know my way around in Second Life. Want to be friends?" she asked, causing the Friend Request box to pop up between them. Staring at it confused for a bit, the player finally nodded and took the hand Xiao offered. "I'm Xiao Lan."  
"Min Ao." the player said. "Nice to meet you."


	4. Chapter 4

**I just realized what the new look of FF Net had done to the format, completely stupid looking.**

**Changed it for the last three chapters now and will continue with this format.**

**Song from last chapter was 'Wake up your Heart'.**

**The song mentioned in this one is from Chapter 12 of the Half Prince Anthology.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

Seeing Min Ao's name added to her Friendlist, Xiao Lan noticed the latter part of his name written in the japanese character and she stifled a giggle, thinking how both of them had the word for blue in their names. But a PM from Lolidragon distracted her, saying that Prince was needed for some stuff and that 'he' should log on. So, excusing herself, Xiao Lan left and logged off. Waking up, Lan took a minute to shake some drowsyness out of her head and grabbed the other headband, put it on and logged in as Prince.  
From his Last Login point, Prince rushed down the stairs and followed Lolidragon's incoming PM instructions. Before he could enter the room where she supposedly was, Lolidragon ripped it open and, seeing Prince, grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. Stumbling slightly, the elf caught himself in time and looked around. The room wasn't the biggest but flooded with enough sunlight and it was completely empty, except for a large white bed in the middle with a thick blanket on top of it. It looked really comfortable, but being alone in a room with Lolidragon and a bed gave Prince a very bad sense of foreboding.  
"You're here!" Lolidragon said and walked passed him. "Good! Put this on."  
And she shoved a small pile of folded clothes into his arms.  
"Um... what is this for? Why do I have to change?" Prince asked. "Why did I even have to come online?"  
"I'll tell you later, just change. The next room is empty." Lolidragon replied and waved her hand towards the door. Shrugging his shoulders slightly, Prince left the room and entered the one next to it, seeing that it really was empty. Closing the door behind himself, he put the clothes on the floor and looked around suspiciously, searching for that glint of a camera lens getting hit by the sunlight. He just couldn't trust Lolidragon when it came to his changing clothes. But seeing nothing, even when he ran a hand over the wall to feel for a hollow spot, the elf decided that the thief hadn't somehow booby-trapped the place and finally decided to change his clothes. Unlike the usual clothes made for photoshoots, concerts or used as reference material for other merchandise, these were pretty simple. The shirt-blouse was white with a stamped ivy pattern on the left side and with wide sleeves, but without any buttons along the hem or the cuffs. The pants were black at first glance, but once Prince put them on, he noticed that the slight stretching of the material revealed it to be of a very dark blue color. Wondering what Lolidragon was thinking, putting him into a shirt without any buttons on it, Prince held the shirt closed with his hands and entered the first room again.  
"Looks good, just..." Lolidragon said when he entered and put her hands onto his head and ruffled his hair.  
"Wha, stop it." Prince said and she let go. Prince shook his head a bit, but his hair remained wild looking. Using one hand to at least manage his bangs so they wouldn't obscure his vision so much, Lolidragon motioned the elf over to the bed. He cautiously followed, but his eyes were glareing at her.  
"Hey, this is business, okay?" Lolidragon muttered, feeling defensive. "Remember the song you wrote a while ago? That love song, you never told us a title for it..."  
"Eternal Love." Prince mumbled, his cheeks flushed at the thought of that absolutely schmaltzy and overly emotional song he had written.  
"Yeah, that. Well, we want to release it as a single. And we're starting by creating the cover for it." the thief explained hastily. "We've also arranged the music a bit, so we'll have you record it properly and all. The SL staff is even bending rules a bit, adding a little recording studio in one part of the castle without us having to build it ourselves."  
Hearing all that, Prince felt even worse. Releasing this song to the public was a bad idea. Granted, the single would sell really well and the staff and salespeople would be very, very happy at money trading hands, but Prince would be earning more fangirls. Like he didn't already have too many of them!  
"I don't think that's a good idea, Loli. I mean, women all over the country or even the world are going to listen to the song, on repeat, and really bother not only their family, but also friends and lovers. Think of all the breakups I will indirectly be responsible of. And those people will get themselves onto Second Life and will hunt me down like a trapped-"  
"Quit your weird fantasies and get onto the bed."  
Prince gave her a weird look when she said that, his hands clenching the piece of clothing tighter around his chest. Lolidragon just rolled her eyes and grabbed his shoulders, moving him around so he was standing with his back to the bed and gave his shoulders a squeeze before letting go.  
"Relax and let yourself fall backwards."  
Taking a deep breath, the elf tried to relax and let his shoulders slump, bent his knees slightly and let himself fall back. For a tiny second, his stomach clenched horribly with that pull behind his navel and then felt his body hitting the bed, bouncing slightly on the springs and felt the soft blanket and sheets beneath him. Lolidragon studied him and then frowned, shaking her head and made him get up again.  
"Do it again. But this time, relax your arms and let go of the shirt."  
Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Prince let go and fell again. Lolidragon walked around the bed, studying him from all sides. Prince was lying on his back, with his knees over the edge of the bed and his arms slightly angled next to his head, his face turned slightly to the side and his eyes following the girl. Muttering slightly, Lolidragon swayed her head from side to side and muttered some more, finally nodding to herself.  
"Good, looks good. But the expression is all wrong." she told him and stood at the foot of the bed again. "Look romantic or so. The way you do when you flirt with the audience."  
"I don't flirt with the audience!" the elf snapped, blushing.  
"Of course you do." Lolidragon retorted. "Just do it like that and we'll snap the pic." And she took the camera creature out of her pocket, letting it zoom around the room and around the bed, distracting Prince a lot. The more often he saw it, the less it looked like a camera. Even if he _told_ himself it was a camera, it always looked more and more like a tiny little one-eyed flying demon. Seriously, who had designed that thing to look like that? What was so wrong with an actual camera appearance?  
"Fix your expression." Lolidragon told him with a slight kick against his knee and Prince flinched, then tore his eyes away from the camera creature and tried to soften his expression. But Lolidragon quickly shook her head and wanted a different one. On and on it went, several times Prince had to change his expression or alter his posture slightly. Sometimes he had to redo the falling onto the bed part again, just so the position would fit the expression but then they didn't fit together after all.  
Almost an hour passed and they were still stuck on the expression.  
"It's just... it's not _right_!" she wailed, slumping onto the floor, frustrated and exhausted. Always, the problem was just a tiny little something. Either the eyes weren't soft enough, the lips either stretched too far or not far enough and even the way Prince had tilted his head was wrong. But her frustration was nothing against Prince's annoyance. He always hated the photoshoots, no matter what it was for. At least this was a solidary one between him and Lolidragon, so she wasn't wasting anyone's time except their own. Not that it made things any better, but at least more tolerable.  
"I just can't get into the right mood..." Prince sighed.  
"Need some company in the bed...?" the thief teased him, sitting down on the edge next to his legs and smirking suggestively.  
"Get the hell away from me. If the fangirls get a picture of me sharing the bed with anyone, they will go nuts and commit murder or mass suicide." Prince grumbled at her, but couldn't move away because he didn't want to have to redo the position. "...you said you arranged the song."  
"Yeah, so?"  
"Can you play it?" the elf asked. "It might help."  
"Hang on..." Lolidragon sighed and got up, leaving the room.  
Prince sighed when he was alone, letting his hands cover his face and closed his eyes, feeling like taking a nap. Somehow, the login was a bit different from before. Maybe because he had logged off just a few seconds beforehand. He was wondering how Min Ao was holding out now in that forest, probably running away from strong monsters that randomly spawned or maybe even fighting alright on his own. He was a cute kid. But when Lolidragon entered a few minutes later, Prince shoved all other thoughts into the back of his mind and tried to concentrate on this again. Lolidragon put the minscule MD into a portable player and set the player onto the floor, setting the volume high so the song was heard better.  
The soft notes of the song began to play and echo in the room and Prince noticed a few little things that had been changed, like little notes sounding like bells tinkling gently in the background. It somehow made him think of snow falling in the background during a love confession. Feeling his face flush again, Prince remembered the lyrics he had written to this song and wondered just what the heck had been going on when he did. Then he remembered the effect the notes played by Gui had on him and why he had been able to write such corny stuff in the first place.  
Listening to the music, he felt his mind going numb again and the gentle way each note seemed to embrace his body, like he was wrapped in a silken cocoon to protect him from any kind of harm. Letting his body relax again, Prince finally lifted his hands away from his face and stretched his arms upwards. Lolidragon looked over at him and felt like cheering. It was just what she had wanted - his position was wonderful, like he was going to embrace whoever might be standing in front of him and his expression was soft, gentle and like he was longing for the one in front of him, but with just a sliver of lust in his eyes. It was what she had been looking for and she signalled the camera creature to take several pictures to commemorate this moment and not having to redo the whole charade, and she knew she was going to use exactly that picture as the cover art for the single.

* * *

"By the way, have you seen Gui?" Prince asked when, after changing his clothes again, he and Lolidragon were heading to the lowest, most far-away room of the castle where the recording studio had been built. At least, that's what Lolidragon said after stating she had gotten a message from the Second Life staff about the studio being done. Probably by coding an empty room in the castle differently.  
"Gui? Nah. I was busy with the staff, so I didn't come online until I had to contact you." she answered. "How's it going with Xiao Lan, anyway?"  
"It's okay. I rather enjoy going to places without getting leered at by everyone." Prince told her with a shrug of his shoulders. "And what with my previous knowledge of playing SL, I can even help some newbies... no offense, but those _Cheap Bracelets_ are a joke."  
"Well, we can't send inexperienced, newbie players into the game with overpowered equipment." the thief shook her head.  
Both got quiet then and continued through the castle, finally reaching the room the staff had changed.  
Opening the door, Prince gasped slightly. The walls were pure white stone, blending meticulously into the white floor and the room seemed to have been enlarged to double its original size. The only things in this room, aside from some very comfortable looking chairs along one wall, was a large black mixtable with two black chairs in front of it and a soundbox. The black frame of the box was holding up the glass walls and the inside could easily fit an entire group of people, with several black stands to put their music on and headphones. Prince walked around the room, knocking slightly against the soundproof walls and examining the stands and headphone sets.  
"This is amazing..." he finally muttered and put on a pair of headphones, feeling the cushions fitting tightly but comfortably over his long ears.  
"They did a good job. Give me a minute to input the music and we can record." Lolidragon told him, fiddling on the mixtable for a bit.  
Setting the tiny MD into the mixtable, Lolidragon adjusted some levers and buttons.  
"Prince, what number are the headphones you're wearing?"  
"Mh? Uh..." the elf took them off for a minute and then noticed a number engraved on the right cover. "Three."  
"Got it." the thief said and fiddled some more. "I'm gonna play the music now, tell me if you can hear it and if it's too loud or quiet."  
Prince waited a few seconds and heard the first few notes being played straight into his ears, very quietly before the actual beginning instrumental started up. It still was a bit hard to hear right, so he jerked his thumb upwards a few times and Lolidragon, understanding the signal, increased the volume on the headphones. It took them a little bit to get everything right, but the music was played in a decent and pleasant volume from the headphones and everything was set to go.  
"You need the lyrics or can you just go?"  
"It's fine. Writing the lyrics kinda burns them into my head..." Prince admitted and studied Lolidragon sitting down at the mixtable and putting her own set of headphones on. Prince stepped away from the stand with the microphone attached to it and closed the glassdoor of the soundbox, then returned and waited for Lolidragon's signal. She gave it, counting down from three with her fingers and let the music begin.  
"_So that my love for you would continue this way..._"  
Lolidragon listened to Prince's singing, her headphones set so the singing was in the left ear and the music playing in the right, then changed a few levers on the mixtable and listened to how the two would sound overlapped. Closing her eyes, she tried to see if the same effect would come over her the way it did when Prince had sung it the first time in front of the OddSquad. It sounded very nice, but somehow it didn't give her that overwhelming feeling of... romance it had done back then. It didn't make her think that the world was filled with nothing but soft, gentle things like everything was made up of feathers gently caressing her skin.  
"Do it again, please." Lolidragon told him after he finished the song. "Somehow... a bit more romance."  
"I'll give it a try. Dunno why I could do it so well last time..."  
"Want me to look for Gui, so he can be your cuddlebunny?" Lolidragon asked, giggling.  
"No!" Prince snapped at her, flushing a bright color. "I can do it just fine..."  
The second take was much better and Lolidragon looked very, very pleased when the recording was done. She said they'd be working at super-speed to get the single out, which gave Prince that queasy feeling in his stomach again. Horror scenarios were running through his head, wondering how fangirls would react to seeing him after listening to the song. They were already wolves upon initial eyecontact - although some calmed down after seeing him a few times - but what if they became hungry behemoths afterwards? If possible, he should spend as much time as possible as Xiao Lan after the single was released.  
"Why were you asking about Gui, anyway?" Lolidragon asked him suddenly. "Anything to discuss?"  
"Um, no, not really. It's just that he always comes running whenever I log in." Prince explained.  
"Hm... well, he was talking about something with Yu Lian. But it was probably about the money issue again."  
"Probably... oh." the elf muttered and looked out the window. He saw Gui surrounded by a crowd again, once again playing his guqin but in a different spot from before.

* * *

The arrow whizzed through the trees and hit its target straight on. Letting his breath out slowly, Min Ao lowered his weapon. The bow was white and looked like two slim angel wings spreading out, very fitting to the archer, Xiao Lan thought. She put a hand encouragingly onto his shoulder and let her eyes stray to the arrow stuck in a marked tree, nodding slightly.  
"Pretty good." she said and earned herself a slight pout from the man. "Sorry."  
"Well, at level 30, I should be pretty good." Min Ao said proudly, inviting Xiao Lan to look at his parameters by opening the status panel. Giving it a once over, Xiao saw that he had put a lot of points into his Strength and Stamina, Defense being his second target for points. Nodding again, she thought they looked pretty good. In the time she had been gone and logged on the next night, he must've trained a lot. He had actually contacted her almost immediately upon her logging in.  
"What are your plans from now on?" Xiao asked and earned a question mark from him. "You know, travel the continent, join a party or fight solo, stuff like that. There's a lot to do in Second Life aside from just fighting monsters. You could even take a break of it and earn some coins by working as a shop employee in the towns."  
"Hm... dunno.." he admitted, his fingers playing with a new arrow. "I'm more concerned about buffs. And what my chances are for things. What do you think?"  
"Buffs? Mh, well, it depends..." she cocked her head from side to side.  
"On what?"  
"If you want to fight solo, it's best to get buffs for single targets. Same goes if you are thinking of joining a team with up to three members. But joining a larger team, it's best to make sure your buffs can enhance your entire party." Xiao Lan explained. "Of course, you could go the way of joining a big team and still using single-target buffs, but the time it would take you could turn out to be a fatal mistake. But in the case of single buffs, it's best to buff yourself first, so that when your buffs are starting to deplete, you're warned that the rest of the team needs a re-buff. But considering your parameters..."  
"Huh..." Min Ao held his head at all that information. "What about my parameters?"  
"Well, most archers choose high speed and endurance. They are generally weaker, but with high speed they can flee more easily and still survive on their endurance. But you put a lot of points into Strength, as well as Defense and Stamina. I'd say you're becoming a 'Tank Class'."  
"So, my only option is to join a party and become their meatshield?"  
"No, no, not at all." Xiao Lan hastily consoled him, seeing him look rather disappointed. "That is an option. But you can also be a solo player, because you're strong enough to defeat monsters easily and with your points in Defense and Stamina, aggressive monsters can't break your concentration or kill you that fast. You're kind of... an archer with the strength of a warrior."  
Min Ao just looked at Xiao for a minute while being quiet, not realizing that he was making Xiao Lan feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe that had been too much information in too short amount of time? But Min Ao finally grinned and nodded, quickly heading through the trees to retrieve the arrow he had initially shot.  
"I'll think about it." he told her. "I'm kinda getting hungry. Wanna go grab a bite?"  
"Sure."  
They headed back into Infinite City. The city was bustling as ever, but it was louder than usually because it was time for the open market. Players were hurrying here and there, looking at things that other players were selling, not just alchemists selling potions or old equipment, but also mages and warriors, swordsmen and priests selling their unwanted drops or items, shouting about their products and calling customers over. And that was nothing compared to the street performers. There were so many more dancers and bards out and about, it felt like a whole city worth of new players had just entered Second Life and chosen those classes. It felt like being in a caleidoscope of music and noise. First they'd hear players calling after them to buy something, a few steps later they heard a bard and a dancer, performing a love song together and another step further, a group of dancers was grinding to a fast beat.  
"Hey, Min-"  
"Mh?" Min Ao looked at her, trying to hear her over the noise. Xiao Lan was quiet for a few seconds and gave him a weird look, finally laughing.  
"Okay if I stick to 'Min Ao'? Just saying Min..." she said. "Kind of makes me feel like I'm talking to my teacher."  
"Sure. What is it?" Min Ao asked, but stopped a step ahead of Xiao Lan when she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her eyes were focusing on something a way up ahead and, curious, the archer turned and looked. He saw nothing suspicious. It was nothing more than the rest of the street, filled with more musicians and players crowding around the ones they liked to listen to.  
"Um, why not we go, you know. Another restaurant, on the east side. It has a mean chilli sauce for the wonton!" Xiao Lan stuttered slightly, grabbing Min Ao's arm. She had seen Gui up ahead, once again playing to the masses, although the crowd was smaller than she had previously seen. Probably because of so many other musicians currently playing. Min Ao followed her obediently when she began to head in the opposite direction, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder.  
They found the restaurant with its big oblong sign with the weird chibi mascot on top of it and even got some good seats at a small table. The entire decoration and furniture was made of deep, dark wood, resembling old log cabins up in western mountains... with the weird twist of serving eastern food along with more 'traditional' stuff like pancakes with apple sauce. But what did the twist matter if the food tasted good? After they gave their orders, Min Ao watched Xiao Lan taking a short glance around the large room of the restaurant and finally sitting back with a relieved sigh.  
"Xiao? Is something wrong?"  
"Eh? No, why?"  
"Well, you abruptly decide to head the opposite direction. You look around, like a caged animal." the archer stated bluntly.  
"Ah..." Xiao Lan giggled sheepishly. "Um, if we had kept going... we probably would've been noticed by someone I know."  
"And that would've been bad."  
"Not exactly bad. Just inconvenient. I don't really want him to see my character." she explained. "But the food in this restaurant is just as good as in the other one."  
"Mhm..."


	5. Chapter 5

**I somehow have some rough spots in writing this chapter.**

**Probably because I want to get to the next important part, which might still take a while.**

**Depending on what I can still come up with.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

"Stat-enhancing buffs, huh?" Min Ao said. "What all is there?"  
"Huh..." Xiao Lan dipped the fried shrimp in her hand into the dip before popping it into her mouth. She frowned slightly while chewing and thinking. "Mh, most buffs for archer classes are multi-targeted because they tend to join parties. Well, there's Shen-ge, Entracement Technique. It raises speed by about fifty percent, for a minute or more, depending on the skill's level. I think there was one that also increased strength, but I can't recall the name right now..."  
Sitting in the restaurant and eating, they didn't talk much because the fullness was already supplying them with an adequate amount of background noise. But Min Ao was curious about buffs that Xiao Lan had mentioned earlier and couldn't help asking for more information. But she didn't say much more, only frowning as she ate more fried shrimp and finally leaned back, sighing.  
"Sorry, I don't know that much about buffs for all classes." she admitted sheepishly. "But I know a guy, a bard. Well, it's not quite right, but still archer class, right? I'll ask him about buffs a bit more and then report back."  
Min Ao nodded and the conversation ceased then, both concentrating on their food and letting their minds wander, mildly hearing the other customers talk loudly about how many monsters they had defeated that day or what great equipment they had bought earlier. Sometimes the conversations melted together and it sounded like the entire room was talking about the same topic until somebody suddenly switched to something else and broke the talking into its separate groups again.  
"Hey, isn't that Prince?!" a girl amongst a group of her own called out.  
Immediately, the room seemed to quiet down for an instant and most people looked at the girl who had cried out, then followed her gaze towards one of the windows that showed the streets outside. Upon the mention of Prince, Xiao Lan flinched and stiffened in her seat, refusing to turn around and kept her eyes glued on the table.  
"No way! Prince's hair is lighter!" another girl at the table said. The atmosphere in the restaurant relaxed a bit again, conversations slowly starting up again at a lower volume than before. Xiao Lan sighed slightly and relaxed, now that she knew some player outside was mistaken for the elf. Her heart was beating fast and she sipped her tea, trying to calm her nerves and caught Min Ao studying her, one elbow on the table and leaning his head on his hand.  
"You're a fan of Prince?" he asked casually.  
"Uh, well, sure. He's cool and all..." she admitted, laughing selfconciously. She hoped that the conversation would die down or at least change, but no such luck. The second girl that had talked was sitting up slightly and leaned her hands onto the table, taking a longer and better look out of the window and, more importantly, at the guy they had mistaken for Prince.  
"Besides, Prince is much prettier than that guy!" she said and her eyes turned impish. "Although he's pretty hot, too."  
"Ah, nobody can be called pretty except Prince." the first girl objected. "Prince is the epitome of beauty! Actually, the word 'pretty' doesn't even do him any justice. If, then you have to say 'beautiful' or at least add 'breath-takingly' or _some_thing!"  
Their voices were pretty loud and they continued to compliment Prince and his looks and body and whatever, anything that had to do with Prince. The archer watched his companion, whose face was falling more and more into a state of annoyance and horror mixed together, like she was trying to keep her temper under control. He didn't know that Xiao Lan was currently thinking she was listening to female versions of Gui, blabbing on and on about Prince. But suddenly, she pulled herself together and sat up straight, giving Min Ao a quick smile.  
"Yes, I'm a fan of Prince. Thank god I'm not one like those _fangirls_ who constantly _leer_ at him like he's a piece of meat. _Poor guy_!" she told him cheerfully, not bothering to keep her voice down and actually raising it a bit. With the talking being lower than before, her voice carried very easily over to the group of girls still gushing over Prince and the Prince copy, but they shut up in a second. Instead, they turned towards her, glaring and hissing.  
Smirking slightly, Xiao Lan settled back into her chair and continued eating, oblivious to Min Ao chuckling now and then when he wasn't shaking his head slightly. The group of 'fangirls' left shortly after, either because they were thinking of snubbing Xiao Lan on their way out or because they wanted to follow the guy before he was gone. Nobody missed them actually, the other customers were too busy minding their own business and the owners of the restaurant and clerks were not missing out on much, since their empty table filled with new arrivals soon enough.  
After finishing their food and paying, Xiao Lan and Min Ao left the restaurant themselves. They stopped in front of it, the streets still buzzing the way they had before and the open market still going on. They were about to part ways, each going to do something else, although Xiao Lan didn't know yet what she was going to do.  
"Anyway, I'll ask about the buffs and tell you next time." she said and Min Ao nodded, both waving at each other. Min Ao continued down the street, heading towards the Adventurer's Guild to look at the daily quests and see what he could snag from it. Xiao Lan sighed slightly, heading back up the street, back where they had originally come from and wondered what she should do now. Questing would be a nice way to spend some time, but the Adventurer's Guild didn't hold any quests for players under the level of 25. Hunting would be her best bet then, just so she could do quests later on, although she hated grinding. It was such a bore, doing the same thing over and over without reaping an immediate benefit out of it.

* * *

**Name** Xiao Lan  
**Race** Elf  
**Class** Lancer  
**Level** 35  
**Health** 1.210/1.210  
**Mana** 15/15  
**Fame** 0

**Strength** 16  
**Agility** 30  
**Defense** 3 (+5)  
**Stamina** 5  
**Intelligence** 3  
**Wisdom** 1  
**Luck** 1  
**Charisma** 4

"S-sixteen levels..." Xiao Lan huffed, looking around. "And it took me... _all day_?!"  
She looked horrified at the sun almost done setting, the longer growing shadows creeping across the landscape. She had left Infinite City shortly after separating from Min Ao and gone to do some level grinding, but this she hadn't expected. Not that it was uncommon that she lost all sense of time when having fun killing monsters, it happened often enough when she was Prince, but that she had only gotten this far. Back when she was leveling Prince, it had been so much easier. Granted, she wasn't the best at math, but when she thought about it, the same amount of time and same monsters fought had increased Prince's level by at least the double amount. So why was it different now, where it took her almost ten minutes to kill one single monster?  
_Maybe because I was in a party..._, she wondered, but quickly shook her head. That couldn't be it. Prince on his own had been better and the OddSquad had relied more on mobs than singles, so wether she was fighting solo or in a large group should make no real difference. Stretching and sighing, Xiao Lan decided to not think about it anymore and just head back. There was no point in wondering out in the open where an ambush could kill her and make all her hard work moot.  
Attaching her lance to the hooks on her back again, Xiao Lan made her way back, her mind on other things. Recalling her parameters, she wondered if they were good enough. She put the majority of her points into strength and agility, just the way she liked it - hit fast and hard. And because she always hit the monsters a lot, the bonus points were automatically distributed to those parameters as well... but her stamina was horrendous. One good hit of a monster and she'd be a pillar shooting into the sky before she knew it. Perhaps she should put more points into that. Although, was it really necessary? If she continued to gain more agility, she'd be too fast for the majority of monsters to hit her, anyway, so she was perfectly safe... at least Xiao hoped so.  
"It'll be fine." she told herself and then stopped dead in her tracks. "...where am I?"  
Her stomach churned horribly as she carefully looked at her surroundings and behind her. Night had fallen without her realizing it, making everything look the same. Actually, the darkness was limiting her range of visibility a lot and aside from seeing the dark grass under her, she couldn't see farther than a few feet. Grumbling, the girl tried to remember what way she had taken, but it was pointless - her mind had been somewhere else and she didn't remember if she went left or right, or if she had passed any landscape mark that was distinctive enough to orient herself by. Slowly, she turned again and looked in front of her at those strange walls.  
_I hope this isn't a dungeon, shaped like a village_, Xiao Lan thought, remembering the mention of a dungeon called the _Orc Village_. Carefully reaching out, her hand touched the walls and felt the rough surface under her fingertips. Well, whatever stone these walls were made out of, they were dark - definitely not the sandstone walls of Infinite City. Taking a deep breath, Xiao Lan knew that just standing around wasn't going to help at all and she slowly entered the city. The streets beneath her feet were paved with cobblestone, but there was no real street lighting. The houses flanking both sides of the street had little round, papercovered lanterns hanging from the up-curving roofs. Her head swerving from left to right and back, the girl saw little banners hanging from some of the buildings with symbols on them. Frowning slightly, she opened the system window and gave the code for finding out her current whereabouts. The little message popped up, giving her the exact co-ordinates and the name of the city. Somehow, she had ended up walking all the way to Moon City?! Well... that's what she got for walking around in the dark. Lost somewhere in a city miles away from where she wanted to be. Thinking that she might as well make the best of her situation, the lancer decided to walk around and check out the city, even try to get a room at the inn. Unless it was full-up like in Infinite City. While walking around, Xiao noticed the differences in the eastern themed city, compared to Star or Infinite City. The entire atmosphere seemed different, it somehow made her feel a bit uncomfortable. Not that she could anything about it at that moment, so she lifted her gaze and saw a sign for the inn further up ahead.  
"Wait..." she muttered and stopped, having heard the music for a while now. And it was getting more audible to her, so she must be approaching its source. The soft notes floating through the air were tempting people all around to come closer and listen. Slowly continuing onwards, the lancer leaned around the corner and just barely contained a gasp. Her thoughts were whirring like crazy at the sight.  
"What is he doing _here_?!" her eyes focused on Gui, again busily plucking the strings of his guqin. Some players had stopped to listen, others walked passed him but kept looking back to hear more until even they stopped. She had to admit, the playing was wonderful - it was calming, perfect for the current time. And with his long robes, he blended in perfectly with the city. But Xiao still wished he wouldn't be here. Not that she had anything against him playing, he could do that as often and wherever he wanted to. But did he have to be that close to the inn? Worried, Xiao bit her nail and tried to figure out what she should do now. She could always head back and look for another inn, but she didn't know if Moon City had another one. Plus, she was tired from the fighting and that long walk to this city she had completely blanked out somehow. So it would be easiest to just go into the inn right in front of her... although that bard was close to it. Contemplating her options some more, Xiao finally decided to risk it.  
"All I need to do is walk straight past him, hope he won't notice me and I'm scot-free." she said to herself and nodded her head, like she was giving herself a pep-talk. Taking a deep breath, she held it for a second and then exhaled, trying to get her body to relax. Lifting her head, Xiao Lan took a step forwards and then forced herself to keep going, around the corner, like nothing was wrong and refused to let her eyes wander to anywhere except the inn sign.  
_Please don't look, please don't look, please don't look_, she thought constantly like a broken record as she walked behind some players to pass the bard and his spectators, trying to keep her walking at a normal speed. And then she was already at the inn's door and opened it to enter. _Oh god I hope he didn't look. Wait, did he just look?!_ Trying her best to remain calm, Xiao let her eyes glance for a tiny second at the bard as she entered the inn and saw that he hadn't moved a muscle at all, merely a few strands of his hair had fallen over his shoulder. When the door closed behind her, she sighed in relief and felt her head dizzy with anxiety, but she told herself to keep going. The player working as a clerk behind the reception desk greeted her with a professional smile and asked her the obvious question - was she going to spend the night at the inn? The price for a single room was three silver coins.  
"Thank you!" the player said after she handed over the money. "Room 22, on the second floor at the end of the right hallway." Xiao Lan thanked him when he handed over the key and she ascended the stairs to the right of the desk, following the instructions he had given her. Luckily, the banister of the stairs went all the way towards the right hallway, so even she - the Queen Of Disorientation - was able to find the room easily enough. Opening the door, she instantly got a glance of a room with wood as the main feature. The majority of the furniture was made out of wood, the floor's wood panelling reaching halfway up the wall. Locking the door behind herself, Xiao Lan put her lance next to the bed and sank on top of it, feeling the springs squeak beneath her. It was a pretty comfortable bed, considering the low price of the room. Stretching, she felt like she was going to fall asleep in two shakes, but then her eyes snapped open. Even with the window closed, Gui's music was still creeping into the room. Humming the melody slightly, she got up again and tilted the window, letting the music in. Grinning, Xiao took her shoes off and crawled beneath the blanket and let herself relax, the music helping all the more with it. Her head was getting heavy with sleep before she really noticed it.

* * *

"_Sight!_"  
Xiao Lan's eyesight sharpened and, seeing the hammer swinging towards her from the right, jumped up onto the top of a crumbled pillar. Gripping her lance tighter, she looked at the Minotaur, the armor it wore around its muscular chest and the spiked brace on its wrist. For a second, it didn't move, seeing his attack missing its target and then he straightened and let out a huge roar, the temple ruins shaking. Xiao Lan instinctively held her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, trying to drown out the noise as much as possible. A horrible mistake, as she realized a second later, the Minotaur's hammer hitting her right in the side and sending her flying through the air until she smacked against one of the cracked walls and lay crumpled on the floor.  
"Uuurgh..." she groaned, putting a hand onto her waist where the hammer had hit the worst. Her entire side was throbbing and burning, she could already feel the bruise forming. Taking a few deep breaths, Xiao used her lance to help her get up and leaned on it when she saw stars forming in front of her eyes. Shaking her head to get rid of the dizziness, she lifted her head and saw the Minotaur approaching with its huge feet in slow steps. The girl started towards the monster suddenly, startling it when she kicked off of the ground and set her foot onto the edge of his hammer. She only stayed there for a second, then jumped onto its arm and ran up its length, but the Minotaur already got over its shock and used his other arm to grab at her. He missed, Xiao having jumped again and was above his head.  
"Gotcha!" she yelled, gripping her lance with the blade at the bottom and it sank right into the left eye with a horrible squelching sound. Trying to not vomit from hearing or seeing what she had done, Xiao Lan's feet rested shakingly on the Minotaur's forehead and shoulder. Letting out another roar, the Minotaur began trashing through the temple ruins, swinging its arms and stomping its legs.  
"Stop it!" Xiao nagged, clinging to her lance and the monster's head, not wanting to be thrown off.  
"_Lan! Lan, hey!_"  
"Stupid... thing..." tugging at the lance and pulling, trying to free it from its hold, Xiao flinched and froze when a part of the broken ceiling fell with a loud crash to the ground. The Minotaur's right arm suddenly grabbed Xiao Lan along with her lance, causing her to squeak at the sudden contact with its callused palm, and pulled the annoying object out of its eye. Now half-blinded, the monster growled furiously.  
"_Lan! Hey, Xiao Lan! He~llo! We need Prince, so get his butt over here!_" Lolidragon's voice suddenly rang through the noise over the PM Channel. Struggling slightly against the grip she was in, Xiao grumbled at the sudden distraction she had ignored earlier.  
"_Kinda busy!_" she answered and yelled when the monster suddenly flung her across the ruins again. Landing again uncomfortably on the ground, the girl wondered if this quest was really all worth this trouble. The level had been within her range and the rank wasn't that high, either, so why was this so tough?  
"_Now! You owe me, bitch!_"  
"_Five minutes! Just, five, okay?!_"  
"_Fine..._"  
When Prince logged into Second Life later, he got greeted by Lolidragon, looking severely displeased. She was tapping one foot and had her arms crossed, one finger beating a fast rhythm on her upper arm. Before he could register what was going on, Lolidragon had him lying on the ground flat on his stomach and sat with crossed legs on his back, weighing him down and trapping him there.  
"You're late!" she snapped at him.  
"Argh, only a minute, geez!" Prince retorted, struggling to get free. "I almost fell asleep when changing headbands, okay? Geroffme!"  
"Not until you apologize." the thief told him, leaning back slightly and putting more pressure on the small of his back. "You never leave a lady waiting, got it?"  
"Ok, ok, I get it! Sorry, sorry, I give, I give!" the elf almost begged and slapped a hand on the ground like it was a wrestling match he was losing. He gave a relieved sigh when she got off and Prince slowly sat up, rubbing his back. His side was still throbbing from where the hammer hit him, although it was less intense now that he was in a different 'body'. Looking up, he saw Lolidragon at the door.  
"I'll quick get something. Wait here." she told him as an explanation and slammed the door. Sighing, Prince shook his head and wondered why she was this angry at him. He was only a minute late, after all, that didn't count anything. Especially since he was known for sometimes being very, very late. Deciding to not care about it, the elf sat down in one of the chairs and put an arm onto the table, leaning his head on his hand. The room was empty except for him. The silence was rather nice... the elf closed his eyes and felt himself relax. And then he suddenly felt something heavy on his shoulders. Prince jumped slightly and felt the weight lift off of him, so he turned around and looked at the surprised bard, holding what looked like the over coat he wore over his robes.  
"When did you get here?" Prince asked, remembering being very alone just a few seconds ago.  
"Just now." Gui answered, still looking surprised. "Your Highness was asleep, so I was going to cover you. So you don't get cold."  
"Me, fall asleep? Haha, nah." the elf quickly waved his hand at that and got up, like he wanted to prove how awake he was. Somehow his eyes burned slightly and his head felt foggy, like it was filled with cotton. Perhaps he had fallen asleep, just for a few seconds? Shaking his head, Prince turned towards Gui, putting the coat back on, and suddenly felt weird. Like he wanted to curl up on the floor and then alternate between laughing and snoring. Maybe an after-effect from getting bludgeoned by a hammer, at least, that's the only thing that seemed to be plausible. Instantly, his hand went to his side again and massaged it slightly. Just remembering being hit made it throb again. How annoying.  
"Prince, is something-?" Gui asked, noticing the elf's sudden movement.  
"Hey, Gui, what have you been doing, anyway?" Prince interrupted him.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, you've been in the streets, playing your guqin." he elaborated and then froze for a second. "I, I saw you a few times. You were even in other cities, so I'm kind of wondering what you were doing..."  
"Oh. Well, as Your Highness knows best, we're short of money. The cutbacks and all, money's needed. Being a bard, I figured I can help with my playing." he explained and shrugged his shoulders. "So I've been walking around all over the central continent, playing to the crowds and getting tips. It's not much, but it helps and Ice Phoenix is beyond herself, saying that it brought in enough on the side for at least one new costume... Y-Your Highness?"  
The bard looked shocked at the elf, standing only a few feet away from him, crying. During Gui's little speech, Prince's eyes had begun to water and now there were two almost steady rivers flowing down his cheeks and his bottom lip was trembling like mad. With a huge sniff, he rubbed his sleeve across his eyes and swallowed, but to no avail. He was still crying and didn't look like he was going to stop too soon.  
"Prince..." Gui whispered and stepped towards him to offer some comfort.  
"That is so sweet of you!" Prince finally hiccuped. "Going around, getting money! All I do is complain! But you, you actually do something about our problems!"  
"But, that's... nothing to cry about..." the bard tried to think of something soothing to say, but he was at a loss. Prince's sudden emotional display caught him off guard and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to comfort him. Slowly, Gui put his hands on the elf's shoulder and noticed him stiffen slightly and shake his head, but not really shaking him off, so he stayed like that.  
"I don't _know_ why I'm crying. I just... am. I'm fine." the elf slurred and bit his lip, rubbing his eyes and trying to stop the tears. They finally did become less frequent and Prince's body shook a few times with dry sobs, just when the door opened and Lolidragon came back, holding a folder full of papers under one arm. All three participants stared at each other dumbfounded, Prince's crying and sobbing stopped like a switch had been turned off. Lolidragon took the scene in she saw, Gui's hands on the elf's shoulders and the red rimming the same colored eyes, with wet spots drying on the sleeves. The thief's long stare made Prince feel horribly uncomfortable and he felt his lip trembling again, like he was going to start up once more. Then she let out a snort and smirked.  
"Oh! Gui made Prince cry~!" she said in a singing voice and sniggered behind her hand very audibly.


	6. Chapter 6

**I drew Xiao Lan again!**

**Now if I could only find a way to scan in my pencil drawing without loss of quality...**

**Although I should really get myself working on some man drawings, too...**

**Especially for Min Ao... goddammit his appearance is killing me.**

**Why did I even invent that guy? ... oh yes, now I remember.**

* * *

The manila folder got slapped onto the table and Lolidragon started taking stuff out of it. Prince was sitting close-by, holding an ice pack wrapped in a cloth against his eyes to make them cool down and prevent any more swelling. The ice pack was a curtesy of Gui, who had left to deliver his latest earnings to Yu Lian, but not until Prince had assured him several times that he was alright and finally had to threat him out of the room.  
"You'll be pleased to hear, the preparations to bring out Eternal Love are all finished." Lolidragon told him, shuffling papers and ignoring his grunt. "The single'll go on sale next week, but we coded the song into the game, so we can hype people up about it right away."  
"You coded it in...?" Prince asked, taking the ice pack away from his numb growing face. "You mean, it will be played in-game?" And when he saw Lolidragon nod, the elf slumped down in his chair with a huge sigh. So wherever he went, some shop was probably gonna play the song.  
"Oh, and the cover is done, too. Wanna see?" the thief asked and, without waiting for an answer, held up a paper with the cover's design on it.  
Automatically, Prince looked.  
It was the picture that Lolidragon had taken of him lying on the bed, only the background had been removed and altered to make it look like the entire ground was just a huge sheet of silk, the fine folds that Prince's weight made in a rosé shade. The top right corner had a branch of cherry blossoms hanging into the picture. And the depicted Prince himself was pure beauty, with the slightly delicious bonus of the open shirt giving view on his chest.  
Prince groaned and slapped the ice pack back onto his face. He just wanted to erase that image out of his mind, better yet, destroy the original photo and never let this thing hit the public. If his fangirls saw that poster and then him in the flesh... well, with the constant starring and unwanted physical contact they forced on him at times... how worse could it get?  
"Hehehe... I'm doomed..." the elf mumbled.  
The room remained silent for a bit, which made Prince suspicious. Usually, Lolidragon wouldn't shut up about the newest merchandise and all the money it would bring it. For her, it would mean the most exclusive new wardrobe pieces. Looking at her, the elf saw her studying the cover poster rather intensely with a glint in her eye that he didn't like at all.  
"Hey!" he snapped and slapped his hand on the table. "Quit molesting me in your head!"  
"Oh, like this is the first time..." Lolidragon sighed dramatically and grinned, but she put the poster aside. "You'd better get used to being looked at like that."  
Sadly enough, she was right.  
"Anyway, this isn't the only thing, right?" Prince asked, pointing at the other stuff she took out of the folder. "Or you could've just told me as Xiao Lan. Why did I have to come online?"  
"Right, right. Well, Gui got some of the new songs finished, Yu Lian wants you to look at the latest reports..." she said, shuffling the papers again. "But those are a different matter, let's stick with the concert stuff first. We got enough money scraped together to make at least one new costume. More, if Gui continues to get such good tips. So here..." And she took several papers and lay them out in a line in front of Prince. Leaning forwards a bit, the elf studied them and saw that they were costume sketches, all showing a featureless figure with various hair and clothes designs. Apparently, Ice Phoenix was in one of her moods, because several of the costumes featured fur trimming. The majority of them were mostly black, although red was the second-most used color in the sketches. Prince picked one of the papers up and studied the design more closely. It was one of the sketches that didn't have any fur on it. It was a long coat that almost reached his ankles, black, with a right sleeve but no left one and it seemed to be held together by a single button. The pants were tight and were, according to the notes, supposed to be made out of leather with decorative silver chains hanging in half circles from some of the loops. The elf cocked his head to the side.  
"You like that one?"  
"It's cool. Decorative, but also simple. But..." he admitted and sighed, looking at the other designs. "I never have the last say in this matter, anyway." He appreciated the work Ice Phoenix and Lolidragon put into thinking up and creating the costumes. Even though they generally asked for input from Prince, it never had that much influence. They seemed to have a certain costume-idea already in their head and were hell-bent on seeing him in it. No matter what he said, it was always _that_ costume that was finally chosen to be made.  
"Do whichever one you want..." he finally sighed.

* * *

_'So that my love for you will continue on'_, _'No matter what I do, I still take you for granted and I wanted to be so grown up'_, _'Being able to welcome tomorrow together, it was natural, right?'_  
Wherever Xiao Lan went the next day, that song was playing. Every single shop had Eternal Love playing, so either they liked the song themselves or Lolidragon had really beaten the term 'Sell It!' into their brains. And said shops were filled to the brim with girls and women of all ages, just standing around and daydreaming away to Prince's soft voice.  
"Please, kill me now..." Xiao Lan sighed heavily. But nothing happened, so she was forced to continue hearing Eternal Love playing. The constant earworm was already annoying, but seeing the fans loving it so much and with no way of knowing what was really going on in their heads, although some of their expressions were rather easy to read, Xiao Lan just cursed everybody. Herself, for coming up with those lyrics. And especially Gui for writing the music and it having such an effect on her, making her write the lyrics... although, it had been her own choice to write the lyrics. It was a vicious cycle.  
"Xiao!" a voice called and two arms suddenly flung themselves around her stomach, but disappeared just as fast when Xiao Lan gave a short gasp. Then she turned around.  
"Min Ao!" she said, seeing the archer grinning at her. "What's up?"  
"I've been waiting all day for you to come online." he answered and then frowned. "Are you okay? You look like you're in a bad mood."  
"Kinda... The song's starting to piss me off..." the lancer muttered quietly, ignoring some girls that had just passed by, then stopped upon hearing Prince's voice singing and were now standing around, probably in the way of other players, and just listening. And next thing she knew, Min Ao gripped her wrist into his hand and started to pull her along, walking through the crowds and towards the city gates. Outside, they kept going as the ever-playing Eternal Love's melody grew fainter and fainter, until they couldn't here it at all anymore.  
"Better?" Min Ao asked, grinning again. Xiao Lan was still surprised at what he had suddenly done and where he had dragged her to, but after the initial shock wore down, she felt calmer and nodded. Now that she wasn't hearing the song coming at her from every direction, the only problem was that it was still playing in her head. Sighing, Xiao Lan rubbed her temples.  
"I know it's good to market the song before release date, but..."  
"You think this is too much?" he asked.  
"Way too much. No need to do any promotion, since it's Prince." she explained. "Whatever it is that Prince sells, it'll be sold out within hours. He could be selling _earwax_ and people would go for it." The archer had a nice laugh at that idea and got Xiao Lan to join him, happy to know that she was getting over her bad mood already. He studied her for a few seconds and then straightened up, scratching the back of his head.  
"Anyway, I was waiting for you." he admitted, shuffling his feet a bit. "There's something I-"  
"Ah!" Xiao Lan gasped suddenly. "Sorry! I saw the bard yesterday, but I completely forgot to ask about buffs. Sorry, it just really slipped my mind~"  
"That's okay. That wasn't what I was going for, anyway." he said and Xiao Lan put her head on the side, wondering if he maybe had a different question. "I wanted to give you something."  
Baffled, the lancer just stared for a few seconds. She had no idea what it was or why he would want to give her anything, so she decided to just shut up and see what it was. No point in wondering too much, after all. Min Ao shuffled through his inventory and then held something up.  
A necklace.  
It had a fine gold chain and hanging from it was a long, thin pink crystal in the shape of a teardrop. The crystal was encased in gold at the bottom and had two crescent shapes on the top.  
"For me?"  
"Mh. When we first met, you saved me. And you've been helping me so much and answering my questions, I really wanted to make it up to you somehow." he confessed. "Well, and I thought this would look good on you..." When he got himself to look up again, he saw that Xiao Lan was smiling and she turned around, folding her hair over her shoulder to expose the back of her neck. Taking that as a good sign, Min Ao put the necklace around her and fastened the clip in the back.  
"Thank you!" Xiao Lan turned around, smiling, the pendant now nestling beneath her collar bone. Then she noticed a change in her parameters and saw that the necklace had the effect of increasing her elemental defense by 25% against all elements as well as increasing her intelligence by 25 points! Pretty and practical, she loved it. For some reason, she suddenly had to think of the Blood Tiara that the others had given Prince on his birthday.  
"Glad you like it." Min Ao said, looking actually relieved about it. "I was thinking of getting some quests done, you want to join me?" And he pointed towards Infinite City. Knowing that the Adventurers' Guild had some quests with great rewards, Xiao Lan looked at the city and sighed.  
"I'd love to, but no way do I want to go in there again." she said, her head still buzzing with the song. "At least, not right now. My ears need a rest..." Min Ao laughed at that and they waved at each other, heading into opposite directions.

* * *

Hours later, Xiao Lan returned to Infinite City, exhausted and frustrated. She had barely leveled up and it got so worse that, at times, it took her almost thirty minutes to kill just one monster! Wondering if it was a really bad glitch, she had no idea what to do. Although asking Lolidragon sounded good. Just casually ask if, maybe, the difficulty of the monsters had been increased. Although, somehow, she knew Lolidragon would only say 'Read the manual'.  
Maybe she should do that...  
Infinite City during the evening was different than during the day. The amount of people walking around was almost the same, but now they were on their way to get dinner or sleep at the inn instead of stocking up on healing supplies and heading out to fight. And Eternal Love was still playing! Although, now, it didn't bother Xiao Lan so much. Maybe it was because she was just too exhausted to care anymore, but it actually sounded much better now. She had to admit, it sounded wonderful. The whole arrangement and melody. This was definitely a song to listen to when people were intending to relax, not in broad daylight when everybody is still hyped up all the things they still have to or want to do.  
"Maybe I should tell Loli..." Xiao Lan muttered to herself as she wandered down the street towards her goal, the public bathhouse. More specifically, the women's public bathhouse. There had been a debate at times about the bathhouse. Originally, it was supposed to be one giant building. And then they discussed wether it should be mixed or separated by sex. And they just kept talking, until Prince had finally, annoyed by the long talks, decided to just build two separate bathhouses on opposite sides of the city. Something about peeking was also mentioned, now that Xiao Lan thought about it... but she couldn't remember the details.  
The bathhouse was one of the few places that was still quiet. There was no music playing in it or in any of the close-by buildings. It was only filled with the general noise of a bathhouse with water splashing, the tapping of bare feet on the wooden floor or the general talk going on all over the place. The air was thick and heavy with humidity.  
Xiao Lan got undressed and put her clothes and equipment into one of the shelves, then headed to the bath. The walls were panelled in dark wood and the stone was slightly rough gray stone, very hard to slip on when it was wet, which it was all the time. The huge tub was more long and stretched almost the entire length of the elongated room, with the washing stations on both sides. Several of the women already soaking in the bath were talking animatedly about something, others were in the process of washing their hair or body and a few had been early bathers and were already on their way out again. Xiao Lan kneeled down at one of the washing stands and began washing her left arm, a habit. She always started with the left arm.  
"Prince is so cool~" a voice cooed from the tub and several grunts agreed with her.  
"That new song is amazing."  
"So romantic~" a third girl sighed. Xiao Lan sighed herself, but much quieter and with an entirely different feeling than the other girl had. Somehow, she had completely forgotten that Prince was likely to be a topic in conversations when all types of women got together and relaxed. And especially with the song playing all day, he had basically been forced into everyone's minds. As the conversation continued in that manner, Xiao Lan began to wash her hair and, when she leaned over a bit, snuck a peek at the talkactive group in the tub. And instantly recognized them.  
It was the girls from the restaurant who had already made their admiration for Prince well known, although they didn't seem too closeminded, seeing as they had last been known to chase after some other hot guy. Although he was supposedly very Prince-ish. But they were joined by other girls who shared their view. Now that she saw them, they all had long hair that they had piled on top of their heads and looked like they had just hit the Copy Blond option when it came to haircolor during character creation. Except one girl who had short hair and seemed a different type altogether from the others.  
"The lyrics are amazing, they totally put pictures into my head!" one of the blond girls said and looked dreamy. The others, grinning, nudged her side.  
"What kind? What kind?" the one who had first spoken grinned. She was the one who had decided to run after that guy in front of the restaurant, so she was probably the leader.  
"Iyah, nothing like _that_~" the other giggled, blushing deeply. "But just what it'd be like to go on a date with Prince! Like, like... Like we're having dinner at a sky lounge or something, and the walls are all glass and there's fireworks outside... and then he says 'Your illuminated face is so beautiful' and then he leans in and-kyah~" And the girl's squeal was copied by her surrounding group, all with the same happy grin on their faces and red color on their cheeks.  
Trying very hard to ignore their conversation, Xiao Lan poured the hot water from the wooden basin over her hair, feeling the water and suds trickling down her skin. Her fingers were clenching the basin, one side of her face seemed to be falling and her right eye was twitching. These girls' voices and talking was really pissing her off. Prince wasn't the only hot guy in Second Life, couldn't they talk about a different one for once?  
"But that line about the first kiss, it really makes you imagine it!" she explained. "Especially the way he says that he still remembers the sweet taste...!"  
"Ah, that line, that one line, um..." somebody joined in. "What was it, 'Being able to welcome tomorrow together', right? I always see Prince and I lying in bed, waiting for the sun to rise!"  
And more giggling and squealing ensued. Finished with washing, Xiao Lan was sorely tempted to just call it quits and leave, maybe go to a different city and shell out money for a luxury inn that included an en suite shower and tub. But she had already paid here and, although the girls talking was the cause, she felt chilly. Deciding to just pretend to be deaf for a while, she got up and into the tub, away from the loud group and tried to relax. It worked for a while, because the girls quieted down for a bit... but then started up about Prince's singing again.  
"By the way, I hacked into the Second Life homepage." the girl with the short hair said and by the way she pushed her middle finger between her eyebrows showed that she was actually someone who wore glasses usually. "The single'll be out within a week."  
"I'm gonna pre-order it!" the leader squealed. "Anything else you saw there? Like, a bonus?"  
Wether the girl had found anything or hadn't, Xiao Lan was busy thinking again. There generally was a pre-order bonus for Prince merchandise. But Lolidragon hadn't said anything about a bonus, nor had she made Prince do anything that could end up in being material for a bonus. Did that mean there was no bonus? Curious, she quickly got out of the bath and into the dressing room, drying off and getting dressed. Just as she was about to head through the doorway leading outside, Xiao Lan stumbled for a second and looked around. Had it been her imagination just now or had the ground moved? But when she saw the confused expression on some other women around her, she knew she hadn't imagined it. The ground really had moved.  
But thinking nothing more of it, Xiao Lan left.


	7. Chapter 7

**Min Ao has finally obtained a look that I like, represents him well and I can draw.**

**Xiao Lan had a little overhaul as well.**

**I will try to get them up on my deviantART account (Cat-Alin) within a day or two.**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

_Humming the melody of the newest song to himself, Prince studied the lyrics in front of him. Somehow, they just didn't want to stick. He kept putting the second verse in the place of the first one instead of at the correct time. The best way to learn them was to listen to the music over and over while muttering the lyrics to himself.  
He stopped when he looked up and saw Lolidragon, still sitting opposite him, definitely displeased that it was taking him so long.  
But the elf suddenly remember an issue he had wanted to talk to her about.  
"Loli, about the song-"  
"I know, I know. We won't play _Eternal Love_ that much anymore, relax...!" the thief interrupted him. "The sales start tomorrow, so there's no need to advertise it in _Second Life_ anymore. Although I'm still not happy with your suggestion of playing it in the evening."  
"Um, no. That's not what I was going for..." Prince muttered, but glad that the song wouldn't haunt him anymore. "I just wanted to apologize that I don't now the lyrics yet. Dunno why it's so hard this time... although now that you mention it, isn't there a pre-order bonus for _Eternal Love_? I don't remember anything being made for it."  
The thief looked at him.  
"No pre-order bonus. Whoever buys the single gets a poster of the cover." she said bluntly.  
"Oh... I see." the elf sighed. "Anyway, that's not what I was going for. Have the monsters gotten tougher recently?"  
"Huh?"  
"Well with Xiao Lan," Prince started and lowered his voice in case someone was close-by. "I'm having trouble fighting monsters. It takes me way too long to kill a single target, so I've been wondering. Did the monsters get a level-up or what?"  
Lolidragon just gave a slight huff and a look at the elf before leaning back in her chair, arms folded.  
_And so it came that Lan was sitting in class, studying the _Second Life_ manual that came with her set. The bell was still a few minutes away, Min was already positioned at the desk and the class was still filled with a dozen conversations going on, mostly about what people had done since they had seen each other about 12 hours ago.  
Leaning back in her chair and tipping slightly, the manual open on her lap, Lan read about some technical mumbo-jumbo about _Second Life_'s 99% realism, the highest realism in any VR-game to date and how it improved on things in previous VR-games like how one's character did not revert back to Level 1, unlike _The World_. But also about the lack of teleportation spells or scrolls, to preserve the realism of things. Lan already knew all of this, but figured that reading everything might give a hint about the difficulty. After getting through the many pages that talked about the possible races a character could have, just the main races took up 10 pages, she flipped over to the next page and stopped tipping immediately, the chair's legs knocking loudly onto the floor.  
"Sell-Out!" she yelled, smacking the manual onto her table.  
"What is it, Feng Lan?" Min asked, taking quick strides to get up to the row her seat was located at.  
"This!" Lan snapped and picked up the manual again, holding it open towards Min.  
It was opened to the first double page about the job-classes a character could take on. On it, and the following pages, each class was listed alongside its advantages and disadvantages, as well as some general information about the class and a full body shot of a sample appearance of the class. Except that every single class sample's picture was one of Prince.  
Granted, it was quite normal and absolutely obvious that Prince was the sample picture for the Warrior class.  
But he was used for every other class as well - his 'Mage' attire was a black-golden suit with a ripped coat, he wore white robes and was carrying a gigantic hammer (which, strangely enough, was listed under the 'Mace' weapon family) when he was a 'Priest' and he wore a long black coat over his naked chest when posing for the 'Gunner' class. The less said about his appearance as a 'Berserker' the better, considering it looked like he was merely wearing bodypaint... although it still looked extremely glomp-worthy.  
"This is bullshit...!" the girl snapped and stopped herself for a second, changing what she wanted to say. "He probably doesn't even remember these pictures getting taken, these must be used without his permission! And... and... he's even the mascot for every single tip!"  
True enough, whenever any of the pages had a little tip or side-note to mention about a feature, it was always displayed as a speech bubble said by Prince. Even the watermark on the last pages about contact information if your _Second Life_ set was faulty, it was Prince.  
"Well, that is most likely true..." Min finally said.  
It was obvious that, when the manual had first been shown to him, he was staring at Prince slightly and probably thinking how great he looked, which he did. But then he had reverted back to his professor personality.  
"However, he is _Second Life_'s spokesperson," he continued. "so it's natural to use his image a lot."  
"But this is too much." Lan sat down again. "He's not the only person who plays Second Life, nor the only famous person in the game. This entire thing makes it seem like, without Prince, there is no _Second Life_ at all. Like the game was built around him."  
"Well... it's true."  
"Huh?" Lan turned to look at the classmate that had spoken so bluntly.  
"Well, think about it. If Prince didn't exist in _Second Life_ - like, his character suddenly disappeared - would people still play it?"  
The girl's face fell in one of absolute horror, but before she could retort anything, another classmate started to speak up.  
And, before long, a lifely discussion was going on about Prince and his relation to _Second Life_, his talents and his incredible luck, whether it was somehow manipulated by the staff of _Second Life_ to promote him better or just really pure luck.  
The bell ringing for the beginning of class was completely ignored.

* * *

Breathing heavily, Xiao Lan packed her lance away as the remains of the behemoth disintegrated and then sighed.  
There was nothing better to get rid of a bad mood than killing things. It was still annoying her that it took her so long to kill a single monster, but the more she wailed on it, the better she had started to feel. So perhaps it was a good thing, for once. She had leafed through the rest of the manual, always grumbling when she found another picture of her other game character used, and had found nothing that somehow indicated that the monsters got stronger, the game got harder or anything had changed. So the lancer still had no idea why she seemed to be so weak. Although her parameters said otherwise, now that she had achieved level 50.  
Sighing again, Xiao Lan decided to just head back to Infinite City, take a bath and then... staying in an Inn wasn't an option, as they were still packed. Thinking of the cloak that was in her inventory, she could easily just spend the night under the stars. The nights weren't that cold, but definitely not that warm, either. Her stomach grumbling slightly, the lancer also decided to grab a bite to eat.  
Just a few meters from the city wall, though, she heard a low growl.  
"That wasn't my stomach..." Xiao Lan muttered and stopped in her tracks, slowly looking over her shoulder. "...Crap!"  
Grabbing her lance, she just barely managed to hold it in front of her before the large red scaley head smacked against it and sent her flying. Landing painfully on her back, Xiao Lan quickly rolled sideways and stood up again, lifting the spectacle to her eye.

**Name:** Red Dragon  
**Level:** 65  
**HP:** 16.599/16.599  
**TP:** 0/0  
_Part of the dragon family, specifically the quintuplet dragons.  
The youngest of the quintuplets, red will call on his older brothers, if not dispatched of soon enough._

"Family reunion if I don't commit murder fast enough? Oh great...!" the lancer snapped and jumped, dodging the long tail that was swiping at her feet. Jumping another time to dodge again, she sliced at the tail as it passed beneath her.  
_(Player 'Xiao Lan' has attacked 'Red Dragon' - 1HP)_  
"What the hell?!" Xiao Lan yelled, momentarily getting distracted and paid with it by getting the tail swiped at her stomach and knocking her back against a tree trunk. Collapsing onto the floor, the wind completely knocked out of her, Xiao Lan tried to reorient herself and slowly got into a kneeling position. The tail was approaching again - its sharp end coming straight towards her, ready to impale her, but Xiao Lan dodged and slammed the blade of her lance into the tail, pinning it to the floor.  
The dragon roared loudly in pain, trying to get free again. Meanwhile, Xiao Lan stepped onto the end of the tail and began to ran up its length, pulling the bladed lance out and gripped the hilt tighter. Almost losing her balance when the dragon, realizing its tail was able to move again, almost turned, Xiao Lan jumped and stabbed the lance deep into the dragon's neck.  
Another roar, much louder, felt like it was going to burst her eardrums and the dragon trashed around, almost causing trees to fall as it knocked against them. The lance was stuck in too deeply and she couldn't get it out, so Xiao Lan was still on top of the monster, hoping that it'd die soon, although she barely made any damage to it. One strong jerk from the dragon and the lancer felt herself flying through the air a second time, landing on the hard ground.  
"Owowow..." she whimpered, arching her back and holding it with a hand. No time to think about her injuries because the dragon roared at her, seeing the source of the pain he was experiencing and went for her. Unable to really move fast or dodge, Xiao Lan instinctively curled up and put her arms over her face, ready to get eaten alive just to reappear at a Rebirth Point.  
"_Flawless Frenzied Blade-Dance!_"  
The yell resonated throughout the place and with a final load roar, the dragon died and began to disintegrate. The whole place was quiet again. Trembling, Xiao Lan lowered her arms slightly and saw the remains disappearing, her lance falling to the ground. Slowly, she turned her head to look who had saved her at the last second.  
"Are you alri-Xiao Lan?" the swordsman asked surprised, his eyes widening when he saw her.  
"Wicked...?!" she gasped, seeing Gui just a few steps behind him.  
Wicked bent down and offered a hand to Xiao Lan, helping her get up on her feet again. The change in position shot a sudden jolt of pain down her spine and the lancer flinched slightly, putting her hand over her back again. It was hard to tell whether Wicked or Gui looked more concerned at her obvious injuries, but Wicked's expression still held a large amount of surprise in it.  
"I-It's nothing..." Xiao Lan mumbled, referring to her back pain. Obviously, she was going to have an immense bruise. Despite the pain being only 30% of what it had been otherwise, it was still pretty painful. Trying to ignore it, her gaze went from Wicked to Gui.  
"We met up by chance on patrol and saw someone needing help..." Wicked muttered and looked to the side, like it was nothing really worth mentioning, but his gaze quickly went back onto Xiao Lan.  
"_How are you online? I mean, not as Prince._" the PM said when she received it the next second.  
"_I'll explain later..._" Xiao Lan sent as a reply and Wicked nodded slightly.  
"Ahaha, I was just on my way back and then that dragon suddenly ambushed..." the lancer started to say, scratching the back of her head and laughing, then her voice drifted off and her mind went elsewhere. "...Aaah!"  
Her sudden outcry caused Wicked and Gui to start and look around, like she had suddenly seen another monster materialize. Nothing was there, though. Instead, Xiao Lan suddenly slapped her fist into her palm and shook her head, sighing.  
"So that's why I'm so weak...! How embarrassing..." she mumbled, pretty much having a conversation with herself.  
In her head, it had suddenly clicked. She finally knew the reason why she had felt so weak when fighting monsters lately and why it always took her longer and longer to kill one. It was because she had never upgraded her weapon! She was so used to the Black Dao that she owned as Prince, a weapon that leveled itself up alongside its owner, that she had completely forgotten about needing to buy better and better weapons. Sighing again, she wondered how she could've been so stupid and forget about that.  
"Are you sure you shouldn't get checked out for that?" Wicked finally asked, nodding slightly towards her back and probably the other injuries she had sustained just a few minutes ago. Luckily, her arm covers were hiding a scratch on her forearm.  
"It's okay..." Xiao Lan said, trying to calm him down, then saw Gui looking at her. "Mh?"  
"Ah. Xiao Lan - 'Feng Lan'?" the bard finally asked, stepping forward a little. "Your face looked familiar, but I couldn't place it immediately. Nice to meet you." And he took her hand in his and shook it.  
"Mh, ah, yes. Same here, Gui-I mean... Professor Min..." she answered, feeling very awkward suddenly, calling him that.  
"In Second Life, 'Gui' is just fine." he told her. "By the way, would you like to befriend me?"  
_Player 'Gui' has offered to be friends with 'Xiao Lan'  
Accept/Decline_  
"Eh? Mh, sure." Xiao Lan eventually said and a ping gave them the signal for the confirmation of friendship between them.  
"Perfect." Gui said and smiled. "I befriend all my students - it makes it easier to have spontanious study lessons or pop quizzes."  
"Pop Quizzes?" Xiao Land gasped.

* * *

Xiao Lan sighed, feeling her tense muscles relax in the warm water. The bathhouse was much quieter this time around, only a few very tired adventurers taking a bath and not wanting to talk. All they wanted to do was to relax after a hard day's work, which suited Xiao Lan just fine. For a second, she had wondered what to do if another group of talky girls was in there, gushing over Prince.  
Sometimes, she really hated that she had let Lolidragon create Prince.  
Actually, it was her fault-No, no, no. It was her _brother's_ fault!  
Had he not annoyed her, saying women had it easier in games, she would never have asked to become a tranny and Lolidragon wouldn't have gotten a crush on Prince and made him all the more prettier and causing everyone else to fall in love with him. Then he wouldn't have gotten so well known, but merely be this little oddball of a warrior who liked to kill things in brutal and bloody ways.  
"Then again, _I_ wouldn't be here right now..." she mumbled under her breath to herself and stretched, feeling her muscles clunk. She got out of the water and headed into the dressing room, drying off and braiding her hair back to keep it out of her face. She was just fastening the belt around her hips when the ground started to shake.  
For a second time.  
Several gasps and slight screams were heard from the women, but any panic was pointless as it grew quiet after a few seconds. Some women were clutching their clothes or towels in uneasiness, looking around in case somebody was hurt, others looked like they were going to bolt the place within seconds, modesty be damned. The lancer frowned, wondering what the hell the shaking meant. The first time it had barely been noticeable, but this one was something that could almost be called an earthquake.  
Hoping that the building wasn't collapsing, she made a mental note to have the others check on that, she finished dressing and then picked up her new weapon. After beating herself up for having not bought one earlier, Xiao had sold her _Bladed Lance_ and barely got any money for it... but she had managed to save up quite an amount and had finally opted to buy a _Glaive_. It was a red lance that could be separated into three pieces, easier to carry around, and had an attack power of 155! Plus, it could only be equipped by players level 50 onwards, so it was pretty much the perfect weapon for her at that point. And it had cost a bundle for that, too...  
"_PinPon! Prince is needed!_" Lolidragon suddenly called out to her over PM.  
"_Yeah yeah..._" Xiao Lan replied and sighed, leaving the bathhouse and logging off.  
Waking up in her bed, Lan yawned and fumbled with the back of her headband for a second before slipping it off. Suppressing another yawn, the pink one was flung to her side with one hand and her other was groping around her other side, looking for the other headband that had Prince as her registered character. Finding nothing, her fingers feeling nothing but soft, warm and comfortable sheet or blanket, her mind went blank and she fell asleep again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hmmm, considering the number of follows this story has, the number of reviews doesn't add up...**

**I wonder how that can be~?**

_Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince_

* * *

"Urgh!"  
Xiao Lan lost her breath when the fleshy tentacle knocked against her stomach and causing her to smack against a tree trunk. She slumped onto the ground and coughed, holding her stomach. Her eyes narrowed at the monster in front of her.  
The mission she had her eye on involved her going to a place called Asgard. She had gotten a map to the place and set out to it, but found something the map hadn't included. There was a forest she had to head through and had found her path blocked by a large lake with a huge octopus kind of monster in it. Apparently, to get to Asgard, she had to defeat this monster first.  
Neither the map, nor the mission had said anything about killing a monster other than the target. And this monster was no push over. With its eight legs - or maybe it was ten, they kept swaying around, it was hard to count them properly - moving, it liked to smack the ground and cause players to lose their balance. Wrap one tentacle around a player's waist or arm or leg, whatever they could grab, and throwing them around or against things.  
Getting back onto her feet, Xiao Lan shook the hair out of her face and gripped her lance again. Setting her goal onto the octopus' several eyes clustered together, she dashed forwards and readied her weapon, thinking of just stabbing those things until they were bloody holes, but quickly had to jump to the side to avoid tentacle number whatever. Another shot at her other side and she dodged again. The monster seemed to know what she had planned, because all its arms suddenly moved ahead and clustered around its face, smacking at Xiao Lan now and then whenever she tried to get closer.  
Slashing left, right and center to keep the squishy feeling things away from her, the lancer tried to take two steps forward for every step she had to take back, but quickly knew that this wasn't the way to do this. Suddenly her thoughts were distracted by that weird, squeaky sensation of a tentacle wrapping around the length of her arm and pulling her along. She got lifted up into the air, practically thrown up and the tentacle let go, letting Xiao Lan start to freefall. The terrible, tingly feeling behind her navel was starting to go through her body, but then she stopped just as suddenly and realized that she got grabbed again.  
And got promptly thrown at another tree.  
All she could see was leaves as she enter the tree's crown and felt thick branches smacking her all over the place and smaller, thinner branches and leaves scratching and irritating her skin. Then a horribly pounding pain hit her ankle as a particularly thick branch knocked into her ankle and gravity started to right itself again, causing Xiao Lan to start falling again. And stopped again when her foot got caught between branches or leaves. The lancer started to struggle like crazy, flailing her arms and getting more scratches, trying to lift her upper body to reach the ankle that felt like it was on fire and kicking with her free leg.  
"Agh..!" she gasped when her ankle got free and she crash landed painfully on her back on the ground. Coughing, she felt disoriented for a second until she lifted her head again. The monster was lying lazily in the lake, waving its arms slightly and staring at her. It was waiting for her next move, for her to come closer and attack again. But one attempt to jump up made Xiao Lan quickly realize that she couldn't fight anymore right now. Her ankle was pounding and felt like it was double its usual size. No way could she fight that monster and come out victoriously. She'd turn into a pillar of light faster than she could blink.  
"I'll kill you next time...!" she gasped in an angry voice and chuckled slightly. She always wanted to say that line! Using mostly her arms, Xiao Lan began to turn herself around and crawl away from the lake, putting more and more distance between her and the monster. After a few meters, though, she grabbed onto a trunk and slowly, painfully lifted herself up to a kneeling position. Stretching as high as she could, she got hold of the lowest branch and used it as a stable leverage to stand up.  
"Ow!" a pain like an eletrical shock shot up from her ankle to her knee and higher, making her buck slightly.  
The idea of getting back to the closest city was a terrible one and for all the wonderful realism Second Life was known for, this was a time where she hated the fact that there were no teleportation options or scrolls to make things easier on her. But if she took it slowly, she might make it back to Infinite City... eventually. Maybe by tomorrow morning, if she didn't stop to rest for the night. After all, stepping mostly with her toes for a split second before taking a quick, balancing step forward with her other foot made walking with the ankle not that bad. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it did its job and got her moving.  
_Ping!_  
Hearing the alert for a received PM, Xiao Lan lifted her head suprisingly and opened the inbox.  
And her eyes grew wide and fearful when she saw that the sender was none other than Lolidragon!  
Lan quickly sat up in bed, her gaming headband in her hands.  
This was a spiel that had been done for a few days already. Lan, after having realized in the morning that she had fallen asleep instead of logging on as Prince, had gotten very nervous when it came to logging in. Having stayed away from Prince, she had logged in as Xiao Lan and had been very careful when walking around. She avoided the palace, the bars, practically any place where Lolidragon was known to frequent. But, eventually, there'd always be a PM from Lolidragon and Xiao Lan quickly logged off and didn't touch Second Life for the rest of the night. It was stupid, it was cowardly, but Lolidragon could be very scary.  
Lan was afraid what Lolidragon might do if she ever got her hands on her or Prince.

* * *

Lan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and quietly after she slumped into her chair in the classroom. Somehow, her ankle was shakey and didn't want to work quite the way it should. She could walk just fine, just as long as she was careful when walking and doing it a little more slowly than she usually did.  
"Hey, Lan." Jing said and leaned sideways towards her, with Yun doing the same on the other side. "Where have you been?"  
"We haven't seen you log in for days." Yun added.  
"I've been busy, is all." Lan answered, hissing slightly when her ankle throbbed.  
"Hmm, cause there are rumors floating around..." the boy said vaguely, before leaning back into his own seat. Lan paid no attention to him. Whatever rumors there might be, they were bound to disappear after 75 days. Unless the rumor somehow concerned Prince, then it could take double that time for people to lose interest and finally shrug it off. And whatever it would be, it was probably not important. After all, the last rumor she remembered hearing about Prince was that 'Prince' was not a real player, but nothing more than a bundle of data created by Second Life to advertise the game with, bringing in more customers and players.  
A special mascot, that sort of thing.  
Class began shortly afterwards and distracted Lan from her thoughts. But not for long, at least not from her previous thoughts. It was her ankle that was occupying her mind. The shakeyness turned into a throbbing that seemed to worsen with every passing minute, finally being so hard that it almost made her arm twitch. Trying to master the pain, she clenched her hands into a fist when the throbbing became unbearable and focus on the lesson to distract herself. But that didn't work. The pain kept shooting higher, pounding in her ears and practically deafening her.  
"May I go to the infirmary...?" Lan stood up and lifted her arm, keeping her weight mostly on one leg.  
"...Go ahead." the teacher said after glancing at her, although a slightly suspicious note hung in his voice. Ignoring that, though, Lan carefully made her way down the few steps. Then she grabbed her brother's collar and pulled him up next to her.  
"What the...!?" Yang gasped.  
"Just help me walk, idiot brother!" Lan snapped at him and kept her hand on his shoulder to steady herself.  
Together, they slowly descended the rest of the steps and headed towards the sliding door of the classroom. The class started after them, completely ignoring the teacher. The two siblings looked like a very slow and awkward pair of three-legged-racers until they were out in the hallway and out of sight of the others.  
"Sure you aren't faking this-UFF!" Yang started to ask and gasped instead when Lan smacked her free elbow against his side.  
"Course not...!" she hissed and continued to use his shoulder as a support.  
"As long as we get away from that boring guy..." Yang mumbled, thinking of the incredibly boring history teacher, whose class they had just left. The walk to the infirmary was a very slow one and more like a hop for Lan as the continued tip-toeing on her pounding ankle just worsened it and finally made her not want to walk on that thing anymore.  
She was practically in tears when they finally approached the infirmary door.  
Tian looked up from the papers on his desk when he heard the door open and the siblings entering. One glance at Lan made him realize the problem and he rushed towards her, putting her arm around his neck and steadying her with his own around her waist and got her over to one of the beds and the girl practically fell onto it, giving a painful sigh of relief.  
In too much pain to really hear any question Tian was asking her, Lan flopped onto her back and noticed how cool the sheets felt beneath her. Her entire leg seemed to be throbbing with pain now, it felt swollen and hot. It reminded her of last night, when she was walking around as Xiao Lan. Could it be that the injury in the game was so bad that it carried over into real life for her? That would mean the game had to be faulty somehow, cause in-game injuries should not carry over to real life. What a stupid idea, anyway. The ankle she had gotten stuck as Xiao Lan had been the left one. And it was her right one that was pounding like crazy right now.  
She hated being in pain so much!  
"Sorry." Tian said when Lan gasped slightly as he put her leg up onto the bed. Gently pulling the shoe off, Tian examined the ankle and kept eliciting little gasps or grumbles of pain from the girl. Thankfully, it didn't take too long and her ankle was left alone again.  
"If it wasn't a sports injury, what did you do?" the doctor asked with curiousity as he got up and went to one of the many glass cabinets and unlocked it, taking something out. Confused, and somewhat now more relaxed since there was no weight on the ankle anymore and the sheets cooling her down, Lan lifted her head slightly and sat up on her elbows.  
"What?"  
"You weren't listening, I suppose, earlier." he said with a smile and grabbed some more stuff out of drawers. "I asked you whether you had gotten injured while doing sports or similar. Your brother's not talking. So, what did you do to get this?"  
Lan was quiet, watching Tian walking around and getting utensils, and wondered how to tell him. If she told him that she had injured herself in a game and the injury had carried over into real life, but found its way over to the other side, would he believe her? Probably not, since she wasn't even sure that that was what had happened in the first place. But she couldn't think of another explanation, so she just shrugged her shoulders and looked helplessly towards the door where Yang was still standing.  
"It's the idiot's own fault, trashing around like that." the boy said, shrugging his own shoulders.  
"Huh?" Lan went and sighed gratefully when she felt Tian putting a very cooling kind of salve onto the ankle.  
She felt like she could hear it sizzle.  
"I dunno what you were doing, but you were trashing around in your sleep and probably knocked your ankle against one of the posters of your bed, you clutz." Yang explained, grinning maliciously at her. Tian put some gauze over the salve and then began to wrap a bandage around the ankle, securing it with two metal clasps. Lan, meanwhile, fully sat up and stared surprised at her brother.  
Well, she was known to be somewhat clutzy at times and did move around a lot during her sleep. But it had never happened to her before that she injured herself while asleep. At least, not this badly.  
"You have a pretty bad contusion on your ankle, although it's nothing too serious." Tian explained when he got up. "Go home for today and don't walk on the ankle too much for a few days. It should get better in a few days, although you might be a little more careful when walking around."  
"Go home?" Lan asked and Tian nodded.  
This proved to be a problem, at least according to Tian. With her ankle, she couldn't just use the next teleporter as you need to stand steadily on both feet to use the thing and walking home or even to a bus station would be too painful. Same with using the bus itself, as it could still shake her pretty badly and it was unlikely to get a seat at this time of the day.  
"But it's no problem. I have a friend who can take care of this easily." the doctor said and headed to the phone for a few seconds and had an extremely short call, before he came back to Lan's side.  
"What, are you calling Gui and telling him that Prince is here and injured, so he'll carry me home?" she asked and froze when she realized what she had said. But Yang and Tian just had a good laugh for a while, until the doctor calmed down enough to answer.  
"No. What made you think that?"  
"Oh, just... well, the way he is about Prince, it sounds like the thing he'd do!" she tried to explain and laughed awkwardly. Then a horn beeped right outside the window. The siblings were startled by the sound, but Tian seemed to expect it. He walked over to the window, pulled the curtain back and opened it, revealing the sight of a taxi hovering right outside the window.  
"Your ride awaits, Feng Lan." Tian said.

* * *

The driver of the taxi had turned out to be the friend Tian had been talking about, an old aquaintance of his that supposedly was quite used to chauffeuring sick students around. At least, that's what Lan thought, considering how he had entered the school grounds so easily and stopped right in front of the window. After having been practically lifted out of the window and into the backseat of the car by the good doctor, he had told the driver her adress and the car was off after a door slam.  
The drive to her home had been fast and silent. Neither of them had said anything, the driver wasn't much of a talker and Lan was still sort of freaked out by the way this guy had just shown up. Especially when he had skidded to the back of her building block and stopped the car right next to the balcony of her home. Either this guy was extremely helpful to injured people or he just never learned what doors were for. But Lan had managed to climb onto the balcony, grabbing the crutches Tian had handed her before leaving the school and could barely wave at the driver, before the taxi disappeared again.  
Apparently, this guy worked pro bono.  
In her home, Lan clumsily managed to topple along with the crutches to her room and fell with a relieved sigh onto the bed. Crutches were a pretty difficult thing to use, if you didn't know how. But she knew that she didn't have to walk for a few hours again, not until Yang came home and started moaning about supper. Then again, that guy could cook for himself.  
Rolling onto her side, Lan wondered what she should do now and her eyes fell onto her headbands. She could log in and play a bit, just to pass the time. Although she couldn't log in as Xiao Lan. Real life injury had already worn her out and Xiao Lan was injured with a similar problem, so that would just make things worse. But logging in as Prince... had its own dangers. Especially concerning Lolidragon. But it was unlikely that she was online at this hour, so maybe dropping in wouldn't be so bad.  
Just drop in for an hour or two, see how the city was doing. Maybe eat something.  
"It _should_ be safe..." she muttered and put Prince's headband on.  
Prince found himself in one of the hallways of the castle when he logged in.  
It had been so long since he had logged in, he completely forgot what he had done last or where he was going to go. A quick look at his team panel showed that Yu Lian and Doll were online, but not Lolidragon. Lucky! Knowing things to be safe, Prince decided to head to the meeting hall, maybe Yu Lian was there and wanted some company. Or be left alone, depending on what she was doing.  
In the meeting hall, the table was covered with papers as always, but nobody was in the room.  
Wondering where Yu Lian could be, Prince lifted some of the papers on the table and glanced at them. Nothing on it seemed interesting enough, just details on the concert tour. Until the details were perfectly planned out and done with, Prince didn't have to concern with them, the mage would definitely grab him when they were. An alert popped up and informed the elf that Gui had logged in. Surprised, Prince couldn't think of a reason why Gui was online so early, but then remembered him mentioning having lots of free time on these days. Either that or he had somehow instinctively _knew_ Prince was online.  
"Prince?" Yu Lian asked surprised when she entered the room. "Why are you standing like that?"  
"Mh?" Prince looked down on himself and realized he had been standing with all his weight on his left leg, the right foot touching the ground with only the tip of his toes. "Oh, uh, nothing. My foot fell asleep." The memory of the pain in his ankle had been so strong that it had made him unconsciously walk carefully on that foot. But, since Prince himself was not actually injured, his body felt fine and could run or walk around as much as he wanted to, without anything hurting.  
"How are the concert preparations coming along? ...Yu Lian?" Prince asked, seeing Yu Lian look rather distant and absent-minded.  
"Oh. The preparations." the mage started slightly and gathered some of the papers. "Well the costumes are mostly older ones, so there's nothing really to do there. But Ice Phoenix is complaining for at least _some_ new ones and Gui's earnings from the street are able to fund that alright. Just that she's running out of ideas, so she's not in a very good mood..."  
"Hmm..."  
"By the way, how are things?" she asked cheerfully. "You haven't been online lately, are you enjoying your little break? Because, I have to admit, you don't look very relaxed. Quite the opposite. Are you alright?"  
"Huh? Oh, it's okay, I'm just a little tired...!"  
Prince scratched the back of his head, but suddenly froze. Somebody was standing behind him and, just as he wanted to turn around, a hand placed itself onto his shoulder to keep him in his place. The elf's blood ran cold. He knew that hand, he knew the slender fingers that were casually applying pressure on his shoulder. It... it couldn't be!  
Prince swallowed audibly.  
"You won't escape from me this time..." Lolidragon hissed in a menancing voice.  
"Noooooooooooooooooooo!"

* * *

Prince was slumped in his chair, his head on the table and still suffering the effects from Lolidragon's punishment.  
The thief had admitted that she had told the others that, if Prince was to log in, they were supposed to contact her immediately and keep the elf occupied, until she arrived. Prince had become the Top Most Wanted target on Lolidragon's list.  
And Yu Lian had helped her.  
Lolidragon was standing next to him and still telling him off for not having been online, especially not when she had told him to be. And any attempt to have explained that he had simply fallen asleep fell on deaf ears. Somehow, he knew that if he prolonged the time of not logging on and facing Lolidragon, it would just be worse.  
"Are you even listening!?" Lolidragon yelled and slammed her hand onto the table.  
Prince jumped into an upright position, then got up and slapped his fist into his palm.  
"The women's bathhouse! Right, I need to go to the women's bathhouse!" he said and wanted to start to leave, but the thief grabbed his shoulder again to stop him and pushed him back into a sitting position. She looked surprised.  
"Keep your hormones under control, this is not the time for this!"  
"Oh, but Gui has to come along as well." Prince continued to the thief's surprise. "Also Yu Lian, if she has the time. Also some dwarves and nymphs. Preferably wood nymphs. And we have to do it right now, or it might be too late!" He felt her grip grow weak, so he got up again and turned towards her to ask if she got all that, but only saw Lolidragon looking at him with a horrified expression, her eyes wide and fearful, slowly cocking her head to the side. Then she slowly shook her head.  
"W-whatever. I don't wanna know why, but I'll send them over... just..." she stuttered and shuddered slightly, waving Prince away.  
Not getting what she was so concerned about, the elf shrugged his shoulders and left the palace, heading towards the bathhouse in Infinite City. Shortly after he arrived there, some dwarven players and players who had chosen the wood nymph race joined him, so the elf put up the 'Closed' sign and grabbed a megaphone and wandered into the entrance of the bathhouse, oblivious of the stares he was getting from the people on the street.  
The lobby of the bathhouse was the usual wooden affair he had seen often as Xiao Lan and the arch, set further down the hall, leading to the dressing rooms and baths. Clearing his throat slightly, Prince remained where he stood and lifted the megaphone.  
"Pardon the interruption, dear customers!" he said, his voice enhanced. "We are closing the bathhouse immediately, sorry for the inconvenience. Please, leave the bathhouse, but don't feel rushed. You may take your time. We are doing this for your own safety. For your kind cooperation, everyone may enter the bathhouse for free on their next visit. I repeat, please leave the bathhouse."  
Having said that little impromptu speech, the elf left the bathhouse and now noticed a few people who had stopped to stare at the leader of the city having entered the bathhouse for the opposite sex. Not caring much, Prince told the party waiting for him to stay there and he left for the nearest restaurant.  
A few minutes later, he was back with food for everyone and the party started to eat.  
"You called?" Gui asked when he arrived at that moment and wondered for a second why dwarves and wood nymphs were with Prince in front of a bathhouse. But Lolidragon had told him that Prince wanted him and that was all that mattered.  
"Gui...!" the elf whined and turned towards the bard, looking long-suffering and close to tears.  
"Prince! What is it?" the bard asked horrified.  
Prince threw himself into Gui's arms and buried his face in his robes, sounding like he was crying.  
"Gui...! It hurts so much!"  
Gui frowned and held the elf close, studying him, trying to see what might be causing him pain. Then he noticed that the upper half of the elf's ears was flaming red and even looking a little purple. And finally Prince elaborated. Apparently, Lolidragon's punishment for him had consisted of grabbing the tip of his ears and twisting and kneading them painfully for a much longer time than necessary.  
"It's okay, Your Highness. Everything will be alright." the bard said, almost cradling the elf. "Let Gui kiss it all better."  
But Prince immediately freed himself from his arms and turned away, so Gui couldn't do so. Instead, the bard pouted.  
While that little theatrical thing had happened, the women's bathhouse had started getting empty, the customers looking a bit confused or even alerted, but some looked rather relieved. And all of them stopped for at least a minute to watch what Prince and Gui had been doing. Ignoring the stares, Prince grabbed a meatbun and took a bite, just as the last customer left the bathhouse. Seeing this, Prince kept the bun clenched with his teeth and started gesturing towards the party and Gui, saying something, but with his mouth completely full, it all came out muffled and incomprehensible. For most of them. Gui nodded understandingly.  
"Start with the outside, look at the wood and the beams, then go inside. If you see any broken or brittle wood, any nail standing out, anything unusual, fix it." Gui told the dwarves and nymphs, as it was obvious they had no clue what Prince wanted.  
Nodding, they set off into various little groups and started to inspect the bathhouse, looking for damages.  
"What made you check, anyway?" Gui asked as he looked in his inventory for the blue prints. He listened as the elf continued to muffledly explain to him and the bard frowned. "Your Highness, this is the _women's_ bathhouse."  
Prince bit down onto the meatbun and swallowed, almost chocking on the bite and coughed a bit.  
"I, I mean I got reports on the house shaking." he stuttered.  
Dwarves were well known for being a race that had a natural ability to repair all kinda of things and the wood nymph race had the hereditary ability of creating wood out of nothing and being able to tell the slightest damage on wood. So while they were checking things out, Prince continued to eat and wait for the results. About an hour or two later, they came back.  
"Nothing? No damage, no... nothing?" the elf asked surprised and the others agreed that nothing in the bathhouse was somehow damaged. Prince frowned and looked at the blue print Gui was holding.  
"We're in the middle of the center continent, Your Highness. We should have the least worry of earthquakes happening, especially if they were centered to just this building." the bard explained. "If there were earthquakes, other buildings would've mentioned it."  
"True..." Prince sighed. So he still had no answer about the bathhouse shaking every now and then.


	9. Announcement

Somebody stop me!

I am tempted to re-write this whole story!

The premise would be the same, probably with a few details changed.

Xiao Lan would have a different Jobclass, for example.

Part of me wants to re-write the story!

The other half doesn't!

I... I don't know what to do!


End file.
